It’s not that often that a group of Latinos in North County unite in service to the community, so to many, the new Route 78 Rotary Club comes as a breath of fresh air.

Their first major fundraiser recently at the Cocina del Charro restaurant in Escondido attracted a large crowd, including business people, students, social activists and fellow San Diego Rotarians.

Founder Olga Diaz, an Escondido city council woman and deputy mayor, said the impulse to start the club came from Larry Sandram, a former district governor of San Diego and Imperial County Rotary clubs.

Sandram, a naïve of Mumbai , India, said he has been trying to push a Latino Rotary club in North County for the past five years. “I didn’t start it,” Sandram told . “Latinos wanted it and I helped get it started.”

Diaz said she began by inviting a group of friends to her house on a rainy day, showed them a power point on Rotary, and got the ball rolling.

“There is much Latinos can bring to the Rotary clubs,” she said. “It’s ideal for them. The Rotary respects diversity, it reflects the community and demands balance in gender, age, and ethnicity.”

The Route 78 club, she explained, consists of A 50 to 50 percent male to female ratio, and 71 percent are bilingual.

“Furthermore,” she added, “the club is global, with more than 34,000 chapters worldwide.”

Club president Jose Montforte, owner of La Cocina del Charro, said that the Route 78 Rotary club has begun a series of projects, including the planning of El Dia Del Nino Day in conjunction with the Children’s Museum of San Diego.

“We also provide items for needy school children, and we want to set up a scholarship fund for the next school year,” Montforte said.

Mark Day, mday700@yahoo.com