Two students we sponsored to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA) in June joined us at our meeting on August 1. Both rising juniors, Chloe Ngu and Clay Nicholson, found the weekend fast-paced, fun and educational. We learned they quickly formed new friendships and learned about themselves through the engaging and enlightening activities over the course of the weekend.
Chloe has plans to start a new club focused on mental health when she returns to CVU this fall. She attended RYLA aiming to develop her leadership and speaking skills and thinks what she learned about her own and others' leadership styles will help her as she forms a new group from the ground up. Clay enjoyed the team efforts which ranged from assembling meals to feed the hungry to putting together a talent show act in just two hours with an assortment of instruments and musicians who had never played together. Both found their fellow participants to be friendly and encouraging and each expressed interest in serving as counselors for next year's RYLA.