Telluride Rotary Club annually sends one or two high school students abroad on Rotary Youth Exchange, and welcomes one foreign student into our community. For the 2023-24 school year, we're excited to sponsor Telluride High students Mesa Barnes and Macy McRoberts to spend a school year abroad, living with host families. Mesa will go to Colombia, and Macy to Romania. Our club will welcome a high school boy from Thailand to the community this August. In 2022-23, our club hosted Annemarie Davidova from the Czech Republic. We also sponsored two THS boys to travel abroad, Philip Brooks to Austria, and Liam Intemann to Argentina. Read this local news article about them. They are pictured here.
Find out more about Rotary Youth Exchange and being a host family at mountainandplainsrye.com.
Rotary Youth Exchange not only provides a life-changing experience for the students who go abroad, but also enriches the classrooms and community by sharing their perspectives and culture. Through Rotary Youth Exchange, Rotary clubs build cross-cultural ties and create international ambassadors of goodwill and understanding.
To make this great program happen, our club must find host families for an inbound foreign student; the program functions as a two-way exchange. This is a fulfilling experience for any household, as you share your family traditions and American culture while learning about theirs. While it is optimal to have host families with a student at Telluride Middle/High School, it’s not necessary; host families can have younger children, be empty-nesters or be single parents. If this is an opportunity that interests you, please contact our club’s Rotary Youth Exchange Officer Patricia Kiernan, kiernanpatricia6@gmail.com or 619-517-5336; or you may direct general questions to telluriderotary@gmail.com.
Pictured here: 2022-23 exchange student Annemarie from the Czech Republic with THS student Mesa Barnes, who will be a Rotary Youth Exchange student to Colombia in 2023-24. The two girls helped our Rotary Club at a community trash cleanup in May.