Port Washington resident Tony D’Urso, who served on the Town of North Hempstead council for 16 years before retiring, left a deep impression on those who attended last week’s Manhasset Rotary Club’s meeting.
His detailed description of his experiences working in the Kibera Slum, an area in Kenya about the size of Central Park with an estimated population of a million residents, half of them children under the age of 12, was affecting. It is the largest slum in Africa.
D’Urso, who attended the meeting on behalf of Cross Cultural Thresholds, a charitable organization working in Kenya, spent 31 years with New York City’s Housing Department and retired as a Deputy Commissioner.
“There’s this big slum where the government makes believe that they don’t exist,” said D’Urso, who is set to make his 11th trip to the area in July and has previously done charitable work in Nicaragua (17 trips) and Haiti (four trips).
“The government does not care,” he emphasized. “Otherwise, they would do something.”
“There’s no government representation in the slum,” he continued, describing Kibera as a place overwhelmed by disease, inadequate or no sanitation, few medical resources, little fresh water, low life expectancy, no schooling and rampant criminal activity.
D’Urso, a specialist in engineering and construction, and his colleagues have already built two schools there in the past five years and hope to soon complete a third. These schools provide two meals a day and healthcare.
“Your work is incredible,” Rotary President Esther Miller told D’Urso as she presented her organization’s check for $500.00 to D’Urso for the Kibera project. “He personifies the best of this country, the Rotary, the best of everything we have.”
“He’s someone who jeopardizes his life to give to people that have less than nothing,” she said. “He’s a hero.” D’Urso is also a Rotarian and lives in Port Washington.
“When I decided to retire,” said D’Urso in explaining his dedication to charitable work, “I said that ‘I have a lot to give and I have to find a way to give my time, my talents and some of my money.”
He also spoke of his experiences talking to local school children about Kibera.
“When I speak to children here I tell them ‘you’re so lucky you were born in a country blessed by God,’” he said.
“We’ve got everything we want and we need and then some. There are kids like you that do not have the opportunity to go to school, feed themselves, and some of them don’t make it after a certain age.”
D’Urso, who was born in Italy in 1939 and came to the United States as a young child so he could pursue an education, initially started building houses in New Cassel and Westbury after retiring with Habitat For Humanity but soon turned his attention to international work.
The Rotarians also spent time during the meeting discussing its upcoming “40 miles in 40 Days” fundraiser. It will be a spring walking project based on an idea from Rotarian Craig Meisel to honor Gift of Life’s 40th anniversary. Since its beginnings in Manhasset, the Rotary’s Gift of Life program has aided over 15,000 underprivileged children worldwide with life saving surgeries.
The club plans to involve many community groups in the project, especially in the schools. “It’s going to be on the honor system,” said Miller, “but we’re going to do the last mile together.”
“Maybe we could finish by the gazebo on Plandome Road,” suggested Meisel. Plans, including starting and ending dates, commemorative t-shirts and an aggressive publicity campaign, are still being worked out.
