Hamilton Rotary Club's recent air filtration cube project a 'real community effort'

Mike Jaquays
·3 min read
Hamilton Rotarians, from left, Carey Hay, Anastasia Wells and David Craine build air filtration cubes recently at the Hamilton Public Library for a service project.
Hamilton Rotarians, from left, Carey Hay, Anastasia Wells and David Craine build air filtration cubes recently at the Hamilton Public Library for a service project.

To address the lingering challenges of the pandemic, the Hamilton Rotary Club recently constructed Corsi-Rosenthal air filtration cubes for local nonprofit groups as its fall community service project.

The cubes are an air purifier system that can be built inexpensively, designed to reduce the levels of indoor airborne viral particles. The Corsi-Rosenthal cubes — named for inventors Richard Corsi and Jim Rosenthal — are a do-it-yourself air cleaner easily made with a box fan and standard MERV-13 furnace filters.

"The club has built and donated five cubes at this point - two for the Two by Two Nursery School at the Park Methodist Church, one for the Hamilton Public Library, one for The Food Cupboard and one for the First Baptist Church. We are still accepting requests from the community to build a few more," said Rotarian Sean Nevison.

Hamilton Rotary chapter President Anastasia Wells credited the club's Community Service Chair Carey Hay for both inspiring and leading the project. Hay said although she presented the idea to the Rotary Club, it actually was a spinoff of a much larger initiative that was happening nearby at Hamilton Central School.

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Hay noted HCS had 50 cubes made this fall. Parents built them at home, while local donations from Colgate University were used by Colgate students and teams to craft their own. Funding from the Hamilton Emerald Foundation gave school district students the opportunity to build some as well.

Hay said it was two aerosol scientist Chemistry professors from Colgate University, Dr. Anne Perring and Dr. Ephraim Woods, who had created the local Corsi-Rosenthal cube building project that inspired her to bring their work to the attention of the Rotarians. She invited them to present their project to the Rotarians during the club's Oct. 14 luncheon in Hamilton in hopes the Rotarians would want to make their own cubes.

"Dr. Anne Perring attended and gave an amazing presentation," Hay said. "The superintendent and business manager at HCS are also Rotarians and they were able to share their positive experiences of the cubes at HCS."

Colgate University Professor Dr. Anne Perring tells the Hamilton Rotary Club about Corsi-Rosenthal air filtration cubes at their Oct. 14 luncheon meeting in Hamilton.
Colgate University Professor Dr. Anne Perring tells the Hamilton Rotary Club about Corsi-Rosenthal air filtration cubes at their Oct. 14 luncheon meeting in Hamilton.

All Rotarians were invited to reach out to community groups to see if there would be interest in receiving a cube, Hay said. After they received five requests, the Rotarians set up three two-hour sessions to build the cubes together at the Hamilton Public Library. All the supplies needed were readily available at the local Parry's General Store, Hay noted.

Requests from nonprofits for an air filtration cube can be sent to Wells at anastasiawells@gmail.com. She said they are easy to make, and instructions can be found at www.encycla.com/Corsi-Rosenthal_Cube.

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Wells said the Hamilton Rotary Club is celebrating its 75th year, with its charter granted April 15, 1947. The club offers two annual scholarships and currently helps support 26 local nonprofits. They will be participating in the annual Night of Lights on the Hamilton Village Green at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3.

They meet weekly for lunch at the Colgate Inn currently with 28 members and would be delighted to add more members, Wells said. For more information contact any Rotarian.

Hay said right from the beginning building the air filtration cubes was a true neighborhood project.

"It was a real community effort — from learning from the expertise of Hamiltonians, who happen to be engaged citizens/parents and aerosol scientists to picking up supplies at Parry's to using the community space at the library," Hay said. "It was nice to have a concrete project to work together with others and hopefully combat a little corner of the pandemic in our community."

Mike Jaquays is the community news reporter for the Mid-York Weekly. Email him at mjaquays@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Hamilton Rotarian's air filtration project a 'real community effort'