Rotary Club Gives Rescue Team $5,000

Tom Waite knows firsthand the hard work done by members of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue Team. On Jan. 31, 1996, Waite worked side-by-side with the volunteer group in a rainy-day attempt to locate his missing grandson, 11-year-old Joel Burchfield of Moorpark.

While crossing the swollen Arroyo Las Posas near the end of Liberty Bell Road, Joel was swept away by swift-moving water.

His body was found the next day, seven miles downstream on the edge of Calleguas Creek in northern Camarillo.

On Thursday, the Rotary Club of Westlake Village Sunrise, of which 57-year-old Waite is treasurer, presented the eastern Ventura County unit with a $5,000 check during the club’s weekly meeting at the North Ranch Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

“I know what these search and rescue people do,” said Waite, recalling the day when Joel, a member of Moorpark Little League, died. “They are absolutely vital.” The club has handed out $35,000 this year, said President Greg Fortner. The amount given to the Search and Rescue Team is the largest single donation.

“This is the first [donation] in an ongoing process to help the team replace items and purchase some new items,” Fortner said. The team’s wish list includes mountain bikes for an off-road patrol and two-way radios.

In 1996, the Search and Rescue Team logged more than 25,000 hours of volunteer service, according to Sheriff’s Capt. Mark Ball.

Donations such as the Rotary Club’s, Ball said, “validate the work that the Search and Rescue Team does.”