Contact our Youth Service Director
Enter your email address and the message you want to send.
fields are required
 
 
Youth Service
Westchester Rotary cultivates and supports the youth in our community! Our projects and programs are designed to aid young persons directly, or to enhance the community’s appreciation of their value and potentialities.  Involvement includes activities such as: the Annual High School Arts Contest with a focus on art, dance, music and speech, the Rotaract Ethics Forum, local schools, etc.  Our Club hosts incoming students from New Zealand for three days prior to their leaving for their stay as an exchange student for a year, in addition to hosting one student for a year; hosts student leaders of Interact and Rotaract Clubs in the area and provides assistance to them in carrying out the Club projects and vocational choices.
 
Through word and deed, in accord with the Four Way Test, the Rotary Club of Westchester seeks to instill ethics, and personal integrity among youth, in our community in particular and the world in general.  Exemplary behavior by Rotarians is the best way to teach ethical behavior to young people, through programs that cultivate their social awareness. 

 

The Rotary Club of Westchester Youth Projects

 
  • Rotary Youth Leadership Assembly (RYLA): This 3-day camp in Lake Arrowhead provides local high school students with leadership, team building skills and the tools necessary to create change in their own backyards and abroad. 
 
  • Rotary Youth Exchange: Youth exchange provides thousands of high school students the opportunity to meet people from other lands and to experience their cultures during a one-year exchange.  The club sends and receives exchange students around the world.
 
  • Interact Club: Interact is Rotary International’s service club for young people ages 12 to 18.  Interact clubs are sponsored by individual Rotary Clubs, which provide support and guidance, but they are self-governing and self-supporting.  Our Club sponsors Interact Clubs at Westchester Environment and Science Magnet and St. Bernard’s High Schools.
 
  • Rotaract: Rotaract is a service club for young men and women aged 18 to 30. Rotaract clubs are either community or university based, and they are sponsored by a local Rotary club.  This makes them true “partners in service” and key members of the family of Rotary.  Our Club currently sponsors a Rotaract Club at Loyola Marymount University.
 
  • Reading and Math Literacy:  Donation of books to local elementary schools through district literacy program.  Rotarians read to children in the elementary schools.
 
  • Pageant of the Arts: At the annual Rotary District High School Pageant of the Arts, first place winners in Art, Dance, Music and Speech from local high schools are presented with cash awards.
 
  • Rotaract Ethics Forum: The Rotaract Ethics Forum is an annual event that engages Rotaract Clubs in important ethical topics.  The teams are comprised of four Rotaract members sponsored by Rotary Clubs. Team presentations are oral dissertations of an ethical dimension of a selected and approved topic, with the topics conducive to the Rotary 4-Way test.