The 2018 RYLA and World Affairs Seminar attendees gave a presentation moderated by Nancy Pacha. Former RYLA attendee, Jamie Porter, also discussed the impact RYLA has made on his life since graduating from high school and college.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests
Gary Pacha-- IC Noon
Linda Farkas-- IC Noon
Pat Schnack's son who lives in Japan
Cristina Cinotto-- Rotary Youth Exchange Student
RYLA and WAS current and former students and their parents:
Mami Selemani, Salima Omari, Jamie Porter, Emmeline Kraus, Grace Ellis, Jessica Hyberger, Patrick Taylor, Mollie Taylor, Brad Taylor, Jillian Baker, Janelle Reemon, Stephanie Bails, Mariam Keita, Xeniphilus Tyne, Shere Real-Tyne, Gabriela Rivera, Diego Rivera
Announcements
Liz Nichols introduced Cristina Cinotto of Turin, Italy. She is our Youth Exchange Student this year and will be attending West High School.
There has been an offer to match any donation from the club of $500 for the Marshalltown Rotary tornado relief of $250 for a total of at least $750.
Can sorting will take place this coming Saturday at Dodge St Recycling Center at the old Hy-Vee. We could use about 8 participants to make this a quick way of raising around $500 per sorting session.
Program
Nancy Pacha thanked the participants in our Rotary Youth Leadership Award/World Affairs Seminar (RYLA/WAS) selection team, including Cassi Elton, Margy Winkler, Pam Ehly, Nan Johnson, Carolyn Wanat, Casey Cook and Nancy Pacha.
Thanks also to Brian Adamec, Amy Nicholson and Phil Peterson who managed fund-raisers that helped to support the RYLA/WAS student effort. To make a contribution toward the support of our fantastic RYLA/WAS students you can send a check made payable to the Rotary District 6000 HEF with ICAM Rotary RYLA in the memo line and give these checks to Phil Peterson, D6000 Treasurer.
IC AM Rotary supported 6 of the 27 Rylarians for 2018 and 3 of the 19 World Affairs Seminar participants. Eight of these students participated in the presentation. The ninth, our Outbound Exchange Student, Vanessa Slattery, intended to come but had the conflict of having her wisdom teeth removal scheduled for this morning.
The RYLA students described some of the most memorable things about RYLA. Thoughts included the importance of the discussions following each activity; the value of getting to know people of different communities, cultures and backgrounds; letting their guard down and learning to trust and participate fully; meeting people who will become lifelong friends. The WAS participants had quite a different experience from the leadership skill-building and team-building experiences of RYLA. The World Affairs students met with other students from around the world to discuss a world issue or concern and to come up with ideas on solving these concerns. They also learned what key issues and concerns are for people in different parts of the world and they learned about issues and concerns important to students who come from the U.S. They learned how different the issues and concerns are from place to place. For instance, in Norway students from that country felt that one of the big concerns in the shooting of wolves, but murder among people is a very small issue since the country only sees about one murder a year. For all of the students the seminar met and exceeded their expectations. Diego Rivera expressed particularly well the importance of becoming activists and to bring about change, and that is what the World Affairs Seminar encouraged each participant to do. Both groups learned the importance of doing good in the world and in our own communities.
Jillian Baker and Greg Probst spoke on behalf of the student counselors and Rotary leaders at RYLA. They both encouraged more Rotarians to get involved as camp leaders in coming years. This year there were not enough Rotary participants to have one Rotarian per team of 12 or 13 kids.