History
of
The Rotary Club of Space Center (Houston), Texas, and U.S.A.
 District 5890
Club 2010 
Chartered August 6, 1964



WORLD HEALTH FOUNDATION
Chartered February 28, 1986

Background
Officials of the Space Center Rotary Club and St. John Hospital announced the formation of the Rotary World Health Foundation (Foundation).  The Foundation will provide plastic surgery, hospital care, transportation and lodging for young people from around the world who suffer from a physical deformity that prevents them from living a normal life in their society.  The genesis of the Rotary World Health Foundation took place in the minds of Dr. Abdel Fustok, a plastic surgeon at St. John Hospital and Mr. Raymond Khoury, the hospital's administrator and a member of Space Center Rotary Club.  Mr. Khoury had been seeking avenues for achieving the Rotary Club's goals for service to the international community.  Dr. Fustok, now also a Space Center Rotarian, had been impressed with the dramatic effect on self-esteem after corrective surgery, such as the young Lebanese girl he treated who had suffered disfigurement as an innocent victim of a car bomb in her home country.  Through their professional association, the idea for a joint program took hold and the two co-sponsors were approached to evaluate their interest.  The directors of both organizations enthusiastically adopted the project and started planning activities to receive their first patient as soon as possible.  The date of filing and charter of the Foundation was February, 28, 1986 as a Domestic Nonprofit Corporation.

History
The history is a synoptic rather than a narrative due to the lack of information or isolated information found but does appear in other documents such as the newsletter, Blastoff or the Board meeting minutes.  The approach taken was to copy all the information on a master document in chronological order including clips from the newsletter, Blastoff, and write ups from Board meeting minutes and other documents.  There were three documents that could not be copied and are shown as follows: Summary Report in Rotary year 2001-2002, a second Summary Report in Rotary Year 2001-2002, and a letter dated October 29, 1997 from Dr. David Taylor to Dr. Fustok regarding Luis Rodriquez.  These are referenced in the master document.  Also all the names and dates were placed on a listing to have all the known names in one place.  Many have only part of their name and some with no dates.

Vic Maria and his wife Norma sponsored and were host for a young Palestinian girl who was severely burned and who received treatment by Dr. Fustok at the St. John's Hospital in the City of Nassau Bay, Texas.  Her name was Narimann Farrah. There are much details in Vic Maria's 1993-94 Rotary history so the write up from the 1992-1994 Rotary year history follows to provide a more complete history of the World History Foundation.

The Maria's have keep in touch with her since she came to the United States in April 8, 1991 when she underwent reconstructive surgery. (Note: Historian 2009.  The Maria's continued in touch in 2009.  View a   photo gallery   of her starting at the age of 5 through about 2009.  The Maria's also received a Christmas card  in about 2005 from Narimann).  A very comprehensive article by Lisa Barley tells the story of Narimann, the injury, and how she was brought in contact with Vic and Norma.  Vic  initiated the process by contacting   Steve Sosebee at that time an American free lance writer who covered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in Israel.

Summary
The Foundation was established February 28, 1986 as a Domestic Nonprofit Corporation and forfeited existence on January 18, 1988 for failure to file annual franchise tax returns.  The exact number of children treated since 1986 (to 2011-2012) is not known because of the lack of records which was primarily the newsletter, Blastoff.  However, the available records indicted at least 15 children were treated, with most returning for continuing surgery.  All the available names and dates, when known, are in a  listing using documents from the Foundation.  Many times the name of the child would be spelled several ways and many could not be verified due to the unavailability of the Blastoffs. The information from the Blastoffs and Foundation documents was written in  synoptic style in a chronicle called,  WHF History . The Foundation was active from 1987 until about 2003 which was the last recorded child to be treated.  Most were treated  from 1987 to about 1996.