PHOTO PROVIDED / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
MESA UPDATE … Randy Box (right), a member of the Anthony Wayne Area Rotary Club, updated Archbold Rotarians about the Rotary District 6600 MESA (Medical Equipment and Supplies Abroad) program. The program has collected obsolete and surplus items from healthcare providers in northern Ohio since 1981 to send to areas around the world where they can still offer life-saving care. He noted that two years ago Rotarians from the district raised $75,000 to purchase 17 new portable ultrasound machines that were then given to hospitals that had none. The program was arranged by Lou Levy.
As members of Rotary District 6600’s MESA (Medical Equipment and Supplies Abroad) program, Archbold Rotarians received a report about the program recently from Randy Box, a member of the Anthony Wayne Area Rotary Club and fellow MESA member.
“Whether you know it or not, every Rotarian in District 6600 is a member of MESA,” Box began, explaining that $10 of their Rotary dues goes to support the international service program that sends usable medical equipment and supplies around the world, where the equipment would be considered state of the art compared to what they otherwise have to meet the healthcare needs of their communities.
MESA today is more than just medical supplies. It now includes a division that focuses on sending and setting up educational materials and technology that schools and businesses from northwest Ohio have donated to MESA as they update their own technology.
The items are shipped to impoverished areas in Central America, primarily Belize.
Box explained that the $10 each Rotarian donates to MESA through Rotary dues keeps a 23,000-square-foot warehouse that MESA owns in Fostoria operating.
Additional donations and fundraising are needed to cover the cost of shipping the equipment and supplies stored in the warehouse to places around the world where they can be put to use.
Once a need is identified, a Rotary club from that area contacts MESA to see if they can help. If what is needed is available in the warehouse, the materials are packed in containers and shipped from Fostoria to the Rotary club in the receiving area.
Shipping, Box explained, is a huge cost. The annual MESA bike tour, a five-day bicycle ride, is one of the main ways those additional funds are raised.
Since 2008, Box has participated in every ride. The bike tour is staged through different sections of District 6600, which stretches from the Indiana and Michigan state lines to areas just south of Lima and east to areas just west of the Greater Cleveland metro area.
Next year’s ride will start in Port Clinton and end in Sandusky, traveling through towns that have Rotary clubs where local Rotarians will host riders for the night.
The ride has gone through northwest Ohio and stopped in Archbold several times since 2008.
Over the years, MESA has sent supplies to some 30 countries throughout Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 25 containers of medical supplies, food and clothing have been sent to Ukraine and refugee areas in neighboring countries.
Box noted that two years ago, MESA received some $75,000 from District 6600 Rotarians to purchase 17 new handheld portable ultrasound machines that can be used at medical clinics or hospitals in remote areas where doctors and nurses don’t have such equipment.
The machines then transmit the images to a hospital where staff can interpret the image and recommend a course of action.
Otherwise, the patient would have been taken to the larger hospital, which would mean hours or more of travel.
Another fairly recent example was sending kidney dialysis machines to Nigeria, where only a few dialysis machines were available for the entire country before MESA shipped machines that area hospitals had already donated and were in storage at the warehouse.
Story updated September 23, 2026 at 11:38 a.m.
