Dec. 3 marked the third anniversary of the Port Isabel Rotary Club’s Hackers and Slackers charity golf tournament on South Padre Island. “Fore” the second year in row, NextDecade (ND) was a title sponsor, giving back to the communities where we live and work.

“The reason for supporting the Port Isabel Rotary Club is because Port Isabel is the closest community to the site of the Rio Grande LNG (RGLNG) project,” said David Keane, Senior Vice President of Policy and Corporate Affairs for NextDecade. “It, along with all the communities in the Rio Grande Valley, will see significant economic benefits from RGLNG.”

“The tournament raises money that goes toward community projects, such as scholarships for high school students, dictionaries for third graders in the elementary schools and readers for first graders,” said Bettina Tolin, Chair of Club Services for the Port Isabel Rotary Club. “Last year, we put in some special needs equipment in the parks and bought firefighting equipment for the volunteer firefighters in the community,” she said.

Organized in 1936, the Port Isabel Rotary Club is part of Rotary International, a larger international philanthropic organization whose motto is “service before self.” The local club of Port Isabel is comprised of retirees as well as businesspeople whose mission is to “care about others more than we care about ourselves,” Tolin said.

“Everything we do, we do with that in mind. When we partner with organizations like yours, it allows us to give all that money back into the community for service projects. Without these kinds of partnerships, we can’t fulfill our mission, which is to serve the people of our community,” she said.

“One way to get a sense of the community’s attitude to a major infrastructure project is to actually be in the community,” Keane said. “It was refreshing to hear, and see, all of the positive comments about ND and RGLNG from members of the community. I believe we have 99% + support for the project.”​​​​​​​