Deepa Willingham to speak at Area 4 Foundation Dinner 11/15/11, 5:30 p.m. Miner's Foundry
Past District Governor Deepa Willingham, residing in Solvang, CA, is a naturalized citizen of the United States. She was born and brought up in Calcutta, India where she obtained her primary, secondary and undergraduate education, followed by graduate degrees in the US. Prior to her entrepreneurial endeavors in the energy sector, Governor Deepa served as the Administrative Director of Ancillary Services in the hospital industry.
Deepa is the Immediate Past District Governor of Rotary District 5240 and the Past President of the Rotary Club of Santa Ynez Valley, being named Rotarian-of-the-Year during her year as President. She is a charter member of the District’s Paul Harris Society; a multiple Paul Harris Fellow; a Major Donor; a Master’s PRLS graduate; a Benefactor; a Bequest Society member; named as “Local Hero” by Santa Barbara Independent newspaper; a winner of Volvo for Life award; a recipient of 2006 “Making a Difference for Women” award from Soroptimist International – Camino Real Region, a winner of Special Congressional Recognition in 2006 and was just recently named a local “Angel” by Central Coast Magazine and a “Community Hero” by Superintendent Bill Cirone in 2009.
Her passion for education dates back to the 1960s, when Deepa served as lecturer at the University of Wisconsin and the Santa Barbara City College and was a teacher/coordinator of special educational programs for the federally funded Upward Bound program. She was involved with educating ‘at risk’ high school students from the inner city in Milwaukee, Wisconsin designing and implementing innovative teaching techniques to achieve educational goals. She was also a founding board member of Cornerstone House of Santa Barbara, an organization dedicated to non-institutionalized care and education of severely handicapped children.
Over the past eight years, a great deal of Deepa’s time and personal resources have been dedicated to the founding and developing of the Piyali Learning Center (PLC) outside of Calcutta, and spreading the message of the value of girls’ education throughout the world. Her dedicated work at PLC, which she developed through her non-profit organization PACE Universal and in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Calcutta Metropolitan, resulting in the creation of a sustainable village rehabilitation model was recognized by the Trustees of Rotary International with a $330,000 3-H Grant in May of 2009. This grant, which is being co-sponsored by 7 clubs in District 5240, will completely rehabilitate the village of Piyali Junction by bringing literacy (to children and adults), health and dental care, clean water, sanitation, vocational training, banking/micro-lending to help the change the face of poverty in that corner of the world. PACE Universal will serve as the cooperative organization for this grant.
When asked why Deepa started this school for girls in the country of her birth, she answers, “It is the fulfillment of a life-long dream…to give back the gift of education, particularly to girls. Girls’ education in many severely poverty stricken areas like India, is still a luxury for far too many and it is certainly not a given. And yet when girls are educated, they grow up to be responsible citizens, changing not only their own lives but also the lives of their children and their communities. When it is such a win-win situation, how can I not do it?”
Deepa and her Rotarian (member of the RC of the University Area of Houston) husband Richard, who is an independent contractor in the oil business in Houston, have been married for 28 years; their daughter Reena was instrumental in the formation of the community-based Rotaract Club of Santa Barbara.