Retirement is sweet for former YMCA CEO Don Anderson, especially during those few weeks each year when he takes off for a couple of weeks in the Philippines.

It's quite the high life: up before dawn, a solid eight hours or more of hard labor, then home to bed. Repeat.

Fine, it's not for everyone. But for Anderson and his Rotary Club of Honolulu brethren, there is deep satisfaction in sacrificing a bit of time, a good deal of money and an awful lot of effort to help provide better lives for people less fortunate than themselves.

Last month, for the seventh time in as many years, the Rotarians visited the Philippines to lend financial and hands-on support to one of the country's seemingly countless number of worthy but underfunded social service programs.

This time around, the Rotarians raised more than $30,000 to build a new welding and metal-work shop for the Rotary Life Skills Center, a program administered by Child and Family Service-Philippines in Baguio City that provides life skills and vocational training to juvenile convicts and other at-risk youth.

In addition to the donation, 26 Rotary Club members made the trip to Baguio City — each at their own expense — to assist in the construction of the facility.

"They had skilled workers on the project, and they didn't really need us," Anderson said. "We had accountants and doctors, not really people who are used to building buildings. We joked about how much time they would spend fixing what we had done."

In fact, the group has developed an impressive range of skills through earlier missions. Last year, they helped build an agricultural processing station. The year before that, they built 30 homes for victims of a devastating mudslide in southern Leyte. They've also renovated a dormitory for hearing-impaired students, renovated and equipped rural public schools and built a shelter for street kids.

COLD SHOWERS

While accommodations for this latest visit were more than hospitable, the group is well accustomed to sleeping on cots in classrooms and showering with buckets of cold water.

Anderson has been coordinating social service projects with agencies in the Philippines for 17 years, dating back to his work as head of the YMCA. Since his retirement, Anderson continued his efforts through the Rotary Club.

The Rotarians work with trusted social agencies in the Philippines to plan and coordinate their projects, relying heavily on contacts cultivated over the years by both Anderson and fellow member Paddy Griggs, who sits on the board of the Consuelo Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping disadvantaged people in the Philippines and Hawai'i.

"(Filipinos) are an amazing people," said Griggs. "They're the poorest of the poor, but every time I go (to the Philippines), I always get smiles and greetings. They're so eager to interact with us."

In Baguio City, the Rotarians worked side by side with several students who attend the Rotary Life Skills Center.

Like Anderson, Griggs said the Rotarians' labor wasn't necessarily needed, but he said he and the others valued the opportunity to contribute in that way, and hoped to set an example of volunteerism for their young co-workers.

During the trip, several Rotarian wives spent time at a local shelter for abused girls. The girls from the shelter also paid a visit to the Rotary facilities to share a traditional dance with the volunteers.

One afternoon, Anderson recalled, the students from the life-skills center sang for the club members.

"They looked like guys you don't want to meet," Anderson said. "But they sang songs that touched us all."

In the end, Anderson and Griggs said, they benefit most from their annual excursion.

"We live such privileged lives," Anderson said. "We tend to equate happiness with having stuff. But then we go there and we see people with full, happy lives even through they don't have much. The Philippines is a good teacher for us."