In this week’s Newsletter you will see a letter from Linda Spotts who is our District Chair for Rotary Youth Exchange. The letter is to inform all clubs that there will be no Youth Exchange for 2020-21. This decision was made by our multi-District Youth Exchange coordinating group called ESSEX and was made in light of the difficulties we are all facing in regard to COVID-19.

 

This was not an easy decision to make and last week those who had been selected to be our Outbound students were given the news. The District Youth Exchange team led by Linda have done a great job in working with the students currently here and while this news for next year is disappointing to all of them, it is our hope that this program will come back even stronger in 2021-22 and return to being that force in the world for good which it has been since its inception.

 

Knowing the value of this program, I ask clubs to take this “off year” and use that time to strengthen their club YE committees, to line up more host families and seek out those Rotarians who are interesting in being mentors and counselors to Inbound students. Together we can continue to make this one of our premier programs throughout Rotary and together we can continue to “Connect the World.”

 

DG Paddy