During a brief pause in meeting with Clubs, I spent an exhilarating week hanging with the future of Rotary, the youth of the world. It was inspiring to experience first-hand the 4th Object of Rotary, clearly one of our most enriching Guiding Principles: that of advancing international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional people united in the ideal of service.
At the Youth Exchange inbound orientation, students from Belgium, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, and Brazil received an orientation to begin their year as youth ambassadors to our District. As Jill Tenny, our District Youth Exchange Director notes, this is one of the more important missions of Rotary. The students will be interacting with our Clubs and attending our District events all year, so please find ways to engage them. Remember that our incoming Rotary International President next year, Mario, was an exchange student from Sao Paulo, Brazil to St. Paul, Minnesota 50 years ago, an experience that was formative to his life-long Rotary association.
Later in the week, Celestine from Belgium met with her host Club in Hershey and over snacks described how she played in a soccer game the very next day after her arrival. The event hosts, Brian and Julie Harris, requested that Paul Harris also join the event and treated him like a lost cousin.
The 4th Object of Rotary was illustrated in many ways at this quarter’s Rotary Means Business reception, hosted by the Carlisle Clubs and Dickinson College. There were several business representatives in attendance to share information about their community enterprises, but the group this time included a focus on a younger generation of non-Rotarians with the presence of about two dozen Dickinson student leaders from many exciting multiple majors and studies, coming from around the U.S. and also Uzbekistan and Viet Nam. The students related their remarkable campus outreach activities, while learning more about the role of Rotary in the local community. Per RMB coordinator, Alden Cunningham, the students got some unique community business and leadership exposure with the possibility of partnering with Rotary on local projects and possibly joining a Rotaract Club.
It was a profound week for our District, as our YE team, our RMB team, and our Hosting Clubs demonstrated great commitment to the youth movement, and clearly advanced the opportunity for understanding, goodwill, and ultimately peace, at every level, as doors to world fellowship were flung wide open.