Touring with Piotr - Monday, May 15

Today our day was planned by the fourth Lodz Rotary Club, the Culture Club and we were led by Piotr Korczynski of that club.

We began the day by visiting a special school for children with severe disabilities, the Specjalny Osrodek Szkolno-Wychowawyczy Nr. 3 Im. Henryka Jordana W Lodzi (www.soswnr3.prv.pl). The school houses 150 students and has about 60 teachers. The students receive a variety of instruction there including vocational instruction, indpendent living skills, and different therapies (speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy and sensory therapy). It was very interesting (especially for me) to learn about special education in Poland. Each child in the school has an individualized educational program and receives individual attention. We were able to interact with a lot of students who were very pleasant and happy to be in school.

In addition to a school, the center also included a workshop for graduates of the school where they learn arts, woodworking and other trades and make items to sell to sponsor community and other activities for themselves. We were able to meet some of the students of that program as well and even purchased some of their art!







After the school, we went to visit a plant where they can energy drinks. The factory is owned by a friend of Piotr's and was interesting for us to see, even though most of us either knew before or found out that we weren't very interested in energy drinks. The factory cans drinks that are shipped all over the world and our tour guide provided us with samples, but I think that Piotr and Jerry were the only ones who sampled them. They'll have to let us know if they experienced the euphoria promised by one of the drinks! The woman who gave us our tour was very nice and showed us the different parts of the factory.

After the factory, we had an excellent lunch at Hola Amigo, Piotr's restaurant. The food and service were great. Following lunch, we visited the main Lodz fire station, where we learned about Lodz's great fire brigades. They have a fire brigade olympics here every year with fire brigades from many countries. Lodz always wins! It was interesting to see their facilities and equipment. Seth and I were even able to sit in one of the trucks.





We spent the rest of the afternoon touring with Piotr and then made our first Rotary Club Presentation in the Rotary Club of Lodz, the oldest and, according to them, best Rotary Club in Lodz. We had a nice dinner and made it through our presentation. We taught several of the Rotarians the hula during our presentation, which we and they enjoyed.