Members of Rotary Clubs in Airdrie, Cochrane and Brooks recently took a three day trip to help others.

In partnership with Shelter Canada, a group of thirteen traveled down to El Salvador to help build homes.

"It was three days of hard sweat and labour with the locals and the Shelter Canada team," said Airdrie Rotary President Bev Chinnery. "We all got hands on deck and built these homes."

Four participants went down from Airdrie, two from Cochrane, and five from Brooks. Two team leaders from Shelter Canada rounded out the group.

Chinnery said the trip was two years in the planning, and each club contributed a significant fundraising effort to help with the build.

"We each donated $11,000 to the pot for $33,000 Canadian total, which paid for ten homes of $3,300 each."

Those funds went towards building metal fabricated homes of about 345 square feet with a patio overhang, which were built for some of El Salvador's poorest communities. The group from Canada worked alongside with locals in El Salvador and the Shelter Canada team.

Once construction was done, the Rotary members had a picnic barbecue and key presentation ceremony, where they handed over keys to the new homes to the locals, as well as some housewarming gifts.

Chinnery said this type of project is emblematic of what Rotary tries to do.

"Everybody was on board with, this is a great Rotarian project and it's a feel good, how do we interconnect with the international community and do something good for them."