RYE Meeting

Those who are more closely involved in Rotary Youth Exchange most certainly have noticed that our 9 inbound students who arrived last month (Karina from Brazil; Antoine, Elisa and Delphine from France; Caroline and Cornelius from Germany; Betty from Italy; Manuel from Spain; and Woon from Thailand) have already well adapted to their new live in Texas.  Hopefully our 7 outbound students (Geena to Brazil; Irma and Regan to France; Marit and Vivian to Germany; Annemarie to Italy; and Willie to Spain) have already an equally good time in their new parts of the world (although some may struggle a bit more learning their new language than our inbound students do; their competency of the English language has been quite amazing from the first day they arrived).  With the inbound students here and all outbound gone, does that mean the Youth Exchange Committee has currently nothing to do?  Not at all!  

 

A few days ago we had already an informational meeting for students interested in going out as an exchange student in 2019-2020 to learn what the Rotary Youth Exchange Program is all about and why “our” exchange program, as we all know, is the very best of all the exchange programs that are available. 

 

 

Despite a torrential rainfall that Saturday morning (September 29), 9 students (8 girls and 1 boy) and their parents made it to the meeting at Lone Star College in The Woodlands. Unfortunately our District YEO Carol Mattingly and Glen could not attend because Glen is still recovering from his recent surgery; it was the first District Youth Exchange Meeting they had to miss in no-one-knows how many years!  Although Carol and Glen were very much missed, PDG Doris Lockey, Chris Turner and Marcus Gillespie filled the large and empty “Mattingly shoes” very well.  And they had perfect help from five former exchange students from Texas who earlier spent a year abroad: Zoe Garcia (Thailand), Kathryn and Kara Culpepper (Germany and France), Cynthia Cisneros (France), and Danny Mireles (Germany), as well as Bailey Ingle who went on a short-term exchange to France and our German inbound exchange student Caroline now living in Huntsville for a year. 

 

Not surprisingly, the students and parents very carefully listened to what our exchange students had to say about the life-changing experience they had while living abroad.  Hopefully most (or, even better, all) of the students who attended the meeting will decide to become an exchange student as well.  As they learned from all former exchange students, it would be the best decision they can make and one that they will never regret.

 

A big “Thank you” to all who made this information meeting another successful Rotary Youth Exchange event:  PDG Doris and Wally Lockey (Lake Conroe), Chris Turner (Friendswood), Marcus and Nisa Gillespie (Huntsville), PDG Ulli Budelmann (Galveston), and all the exchange students named above.