STUDENT NIGHT - ROTARY YOUTH ADVENTURES REPORT-OUTS
Smitty's Family Restaurant was filled with Youth Adventurers on and their parents on November 8, as the Kingston-Frontenac Club hosted 6 students who had participated in 3 different Youth Adventures since August 2023. The students spoke of their Adventures - why they were interested to participate, what they got out of it, what they thought could be improved for next year and how they hoped to benefit from their experience looking forward to future studies and career interests.
In addition to the students and their parent/ guardian, Tom Pinkerton, the Computer Science teacher at Ernestown who helped encourage his students (from both Ernestown and Sydenham High Schools) to participate in the Adventure in High Technology was also in attendance. He explained the relevance of the Adventure to the students' ongoing studies and why he had encouraged them to participate.
During the meeting, the students and parent/ guardians learned of the significance of the Rotary 4-way Test and each student received a special Rotary coin with the 4-way Test to carry with them. In addition, they learned about the various youth development programs offered by Rotary, including other Adventures (Citizenship, etc.), the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) weekend in May, the Interact Club getting re-launched at Frontenac (and perhaps Ernestown) as well as the International Youth Exchange programs. Rotarians asked a number of questions of the students and were genuinely interested in hearing about the students' varied experiences.
Following the meeting, two of the students expressed interest in the International YouthEx programs and submitted applications for the upcoming long-term and short-term exchanges next year. After being interviewed by the selection committee, Cole Yeatman received an offer for a long-term exchange scholarship in 2024-25 and Molly Stanton received a short-term exchange offer for Summer 2024. They will be joining Kyara Loader, who is the other student (from Holy Cross) selected to receive a short-term exchange offer. All 3 of these student exchanges will be sponsored by the Kingston-Frontenac Club.
In addition to picking up the food and beverage tabs for each of our guests, the students (and Tom Pinkerton as well) each received a 2024 Rotary Cash Calendar to take home. In addition to serving as a positive reminder and keeping Rotary visible on the homefront for the next year, the students were excited with the chance of potentially being one of the winners of a cash prize during the year!
A great night for the recently re-launched Youth/ Vocational Serivces Committee in the Kingston-Frontenac Club!
- Mason Schjerning (Sydenham HS)
Adventure in Understanding (organized by Peterborough-Kawartha)
- Molly Stanton (Sydenham HS)
Adventure in the Environment (organized by Cornwall Sunrise)
- Gerorge Lowdon (Frontenac SS), Kya Betke & Cole Yeatman (Sydenham HS), Josh Flank (Ernestown SS)
Adventure in High Technology (organized by Nepean-Kanata)