By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Buses, ambulances, a fire truck and some musical instruments heading to Mexico for the Los Amigos Project

Sep 26, 2018 | 3:49 PM

LETHBRIDGE – When a vehicle gets decommissioned, it loses any value in its country of origin, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value elsewhere.

The Los Amigos project, organized by the Rotary Club of Lethbridge Sunrise, has coordinated the donation of decommissioned Canadian vehicles that are now in regular use for medical, emergency, firefighting or transportation in Mexican communities for years.

Carl Samuels, the project’s coordinator, says this wouldn’t be possible without the sponsorship of several different clubs, businesses, towns and cities.

“The City of Lethbridge donated a school bus, a handi-bus and two ambulances. One ambulance was donated by the Town of Pincher Creek and the fire truck by the Rocky View Municipal District near Airdrie.”

The Los Amigos project started in 2011, and to date, has seen 81 drivers volunteer over 25,000 hours to deliver 35 vehicles including ambulances, school buses, fire trucks, and handi-buses to Mexico.

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“There’s a lot of work that goes into this project, it takes about a year to be ready to move the vehicles south. All the drivers are Rotarians, volunteers, and will be donating their time to complete the drive down to Mexico,” Samuels said.

In the past the Los Amigos project took place in the spring, but Samuels says there were a couple of reasons they went to the fall.

“There’s another project like this called the Road to Mexico that runs out of Grande Prairie. They run a bunch of vehicles down, and they started their project way before us. We just didn’t want to be clashing with them because there’s a lot of stuff going on, and you can’t have two groups coming down with a bunch of vehicles.”

Los Amigos is funded through Rotary, and government grants, donations and sponsorships.

Rotary clubs in Mexico assist local chapters by identifying appropriate destinations for the vehicles, and throughout the year Rotarians work diligently with their local communities to obtain donations of decommissioned vehicles, supplies and services.

One of the drivers, Jim Campbell, says on top of the emergency vehicles donated they have another exciting thing they’ll be taking to Mexico.

“This year Gilbert Patterson School here in Lethbridge has organized a donation of musical instruments, so we’re going to be taking about 20 to 30 instruments to a musical school just outside of Mazatlán in Mexico for the first time. All of the volunteers and the musicians have been working really hard to make sure they’re in good shape, one of the teachers, Carly Lewis, has been the organizer of the whole process,” Campbell said.

The vehicles have been inspected and made roadworthy, and will soon make a seven-day, 3,800 km journey from Lethbridge to Mazatlán.

So just how much are these vehicles needed in communities in Mexico?

“The most common statement we get is if they could get these used vehicles, the minimum cost to the communities would be $15,000 to $20,000,” Campbell said. “They don’t have that kind of money to be able to buy them, and also, they can’t find used vehicles in close proximity to Mexico other than Canada.”

That’s because most of the emergency services vehicles in the US are resold and delivered to other communities.

Thanks to generosity and laxer rules and regulations, Campbell says when vehicles get decommissioned they ask for them to be donated to the project to be delivered to communities in Mexico.

“Rotary Club helps sponsor the vehicle for the community, but then the municipality has to cover all of the costs of operation and maintenance of the vehicle. A representative of the municipality, who is also a driver, and a Rotarian get in a vehicle and drive it from Mazatlán out to each recipient communities.”

Not only are the vehicles needed, but the impact they provide is widely felt across those communities.

Samuels says when he was down there he actually had an opportunity to see how these vehicles were used.

“There are people in small communities around the big centres that don’t have the opportunity to go to school and go on field trips or they might have disabilities, these kids can now go to places. Last year when I went down, it was so satisfying to see how excited these kids get when they see the vehicles.”

A town like Culiacán, an agricultural community, has a lot of infant mortality and kids that get sick, according to Samuels.

“The nearest hospital is an hour away, now that they’ve got the ambulances they can take the kids and the mothers to the hospital to receive treatment. In a place like Tepatitlán, it’s about the size of Lethbridge, all these years they’ve only had two ambulances. We got them the third one, and now they have 24-hour ambulance service,” he said, adding the vehicles are being used and the people are thankful for them.

The real show happens once the vehicles arrive at their destination.

“People are so happy to see us when we get there,” Samuels continued. “The mayor comes out, the local media, they put on a parade and the whole thing. They also treat us to a wonderful fiesta, as they call it.”