Rotary International developed five avenues of service for Rotary clubs to use to build relationships, improve lives, and create a better world. Our club uses those avenues of service to establish goals that ensure we are meeting the objectives of Rotary. Those five avenues of service are:
Club Service – focused on building strong, thriving clubs through relationships and membership development.
Vocational Service – calling on all Rotarians to work with integrity and use their expertise to address the problems and needs of society.
Community Service – encouraging Rotarians to improve the quality of life for people in their communities and to service the public interest.
International Service – promoting peace and understanding through the global reach of Rotary with international projects, partnerships and volunteer service.
Youth Service – empowering youth and young professionals through leadership development programs.
Youth Service is my focus this year and it is a multi-faceted avenue with many opportunities to serve and change lives. Many of the programs of Rotary International focus on youth and developing future leaders and Rotarians. Programs such as Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA), Rotary Youth Exchange, New Generations Service Exchange, and Rotary Scholarships. Rotary also has two additional club types that are focused on developing youth; Interact Clubs, which are for youth ages 12-18, and Rotaract Clubs, which are for young adults ages 18-30. Both of these clubs have to be sponsored by a Rotary club like ours. In additional to the RI programs, our Rotary District (5870) has a Vocational Scholarship program and our club has its’ very own local scholarship program, adopted school program and other service projects that benefit organizations in our community who work with youth.
Phew! That’s a lot of youth services right! That means there are a lot of opportunities for you to get involved with a program of Rotary that will help develop our next generation of leaders. We need volunteers to help with almost every youth program I mentioned above. There are some programs we aren’t even addressing because we don’t have the manpower. Are you interested in working with the youth in our community to build a better world? If so, I would love to hear from you.
Stay tuned. I’ll be bringing you more detailed information on each of our youth programs in future installments of the newsletter.