Telluride Rotary Club is proud to sponsor Rotary Youth Exchange, sending one or two high school students abroad and hosting a foreign student in Telluride for the school year. If you are a high school student interested in going abroad, go to mountainandplainsrye.com for info and contact our club’s RYE officer Laurie Easter easter.laurie@gmail.com. 

Last year, our club  welcomed Paul from Austria to be the inbound student for the 2024-25 school year. Paul (pictured here, being greeted by Telluride Rotarians at the airport) attended Telluride High and was hosted by local families.

The prior year, our club arranged for two Telluride High students to spend the year studying and living abroad. Macy McRoberts (pictured here) spent the year in Romania, while Mesa Barnes spent her year in Colombia. Both described the experiences of living with host families, attending local schools, becoming nearly fluent in the language, spending time with other exchange students, and learning a great deal about the country and region’s culture. During their presentations to our club, both girls wore the traditional blazer decorated with a multitude of pins collected during their travel, which is one of the traditions of Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE).

Rotary Youth Exchange enhances peace and international understanding by hosting high school students abroad to experience different cultures. To make this life-changing program work, we need host families! Host families host an exchange student for approximately three months. While it’s helpful to be a household with a high school student, families with younger kids, or empty-nester couples or single households also are welcome to apply to host. For more info see mountainandplainsrye.com and contact easter.laurie@gmail.com.

In June, our club launched a new community event to promote health and camaraderie while also raising much-needed funds for Telluride Rotary and other nonprofits. The Hikeathon involved over 80 participants hiking and logging miles during four weeks in June, and they solicited donations from family & friends. Some formed teams, and the teams that represented a nonprofit received half the money they raised for their nonprofit (the other half going to Telluride Rotary).

We netted $20,300 for Telluride Rotary and $6100 for other nonprofits!

Many thanks to our sponsors Alpine Bank and Jagged Edge Mountain Gear; to Clark's Market for donating food and drinks for our gatherings; and to the many local businesses that donated prizes. See @telluriderotaryhikeathon on Instagram for more info and photos. We hope to do this again in 2026.