What Jeff Lichty looks forward to the most when Rotary Youth Exchange students formally meet up with host families is the speeches of the students.
‘We ask them to give two- to three-minute speeches and they are phenomenal. Some leave us laughing. Some kids tell us their thoughts and make me think those students should work for the state department because what they said was very insightful,’ Lichty said.
He belongs to the Clarkston Rotary Club and works with exchange students in the southeast Michigan-Ontario district of Rotary.
Host Family Appreciation Day is at 2 p.m. April 29 at DeCarlo’s Banquet and Convention Center, 6015 E. 10 Mile Road, Warren.
Students receive blazers that become part of their uniform and identify them as exchange students. Most jackets end up with practically every square inch covered by pins and patches from their exchange year.
‘This will showcase our Youth Exchange students, their host families and the families of the students going overseas,’ Jan Loch, of the Warren Rotary Club that meets at DeCarlo’s, said. ‘We will hear the stories of our inbound students as they tell us some of the things they experienced while living here for a year. We meet the North American students who will be spending next year in a different country. We will be thanking all the families that make this program work.
‘Last year, we had more than 100 non-Rotarians in the audience,’ she said.
Registration is required and available on the district website, rotary6380.org.
‘It used to be that the inbound students were always highlighted at the (Rotary) district conference but then the families don’t get to hear the speeches,’ Lichty said. ‘So we said let’s invite prospective families to hear the ‘been there, done that’ stories. It should be fun.’
Anyone interested in the Rotary Youth Exchange program may call Lichty at 248-625-4244 and discuss the ‘joys of being a host family.’ He knows because he and his wife, Rotarian Mary Sloan, have hosted three foreign exchange students.
‘The first was a girl from France outside of the Cognac region,’ Lichty said. ‘She was a gem. She’d get ready for bed then come out and do her homework with our family. She took a class in Japanese. The teacher called her the Michael Jordan of the class. She’s now the mom of three young kids and her husband is a software developer and she’s teaching English as a second language in France. After she left college and met her husband they traveled all over the world. We’d hear from them from Vietnam, Laos, India.
‘Another was a young man from Argentina. He was here when Argentina kind of imploded. Up until then he made a minimal effort in school but was doing OK; having a good time. Then he saw how his country was being represented in the newspapers and he really buckled down and became a speaker to groups in school. He really represented his country well.’
Another of Lichty’s exchange students was a girl from Mexico who is now an orthodontist.
‘Our students tend to be achievers who come from families of achievers,’ he said. ‘The problem we have in getting people to participate in the youth exchange program is convincing parents that 17-year-olds are fully capable of taking care of themselves for a year. Convincing the kids is usually not a problem.
‘Rotary has a ready-made network for the kids because of Rotary clubs,’ he said.
Rotary clubs provide a spending allowance for the students, provide or help to find three host families for each student in the same school district, provide counselors so students can discuss any concerns with them, and take care of paperwork and processing for the traveling students. Club members take them on trips, put on birthday parties, and generally give them American family life experiences.
The Rotary International Youth Exchange program — with an ultimate goal of promoting world peace and understanding — is responsible for four to five percent of all exchange students coming into the United States and 80 percent of students going to other countries. Costs to the students’ families include $1,200 administration fee, the cost of a plane ticket, and possibly a health insurance charge.
‘We have provided scholarships,’ Lichty said. ‘The event on the 29th is an excellent opportunity for anyone thinking about hosting and meeting host families to find out about their experiences.’
Health and sanitation programs explained
At the exchange event, there will be a presentation on ‘The Big Rotary Picture’ about other projects done by Rotary clubs and foundations including the eradication of the live polio virus. The number of cases of the paralyzing disease is down to a handful but for every child paralyzed by polio, there are 200 others who carry the virus without symptoms. A person from an endemic country can get on a plane and unknowingly spread the virus anywhere.
Two Oakland County Rotary clubs are sponsoring a workshop by the Center for Affordable Water and Sanitation, or CAWST (see cawst.org) on BioSand water filters April 19-22 at the Colombiere Conference Center in Clarkston. Rotarians provide the filters to villagers in underdeveloped countries.
Michigan Rotarians recently attended a meeting in Beirut, Lebanon with the organization A Vision for Clean Water for a discussion on the issue of water security and sanitation as it relates to peace in the Middle East. Rotarians marked World Water Day last month with various events.
On April 22, Earth Day, Rotarians celebrate the Year of the Tree and State of the Planet at the Rotary district conference May 3-6 in Ypsilanti. Rotarians will plant 100 trees in Rolling Hills Park alongside native and noninvasive species, bio-diverse native prairies, and pollinator-friendly plants. They will discuss toilets and good sanitation for the 2.5 billion people in the world who lack them, and for the 1.8 billion people who drink water contaminated by human feces.
Rotary Leadership Program April 20-22
The Warren Rotary Club is sponsoring two students from Center Line High School to the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards April 20-22 at Camp Copneconic in Fenton.
RYLA is a teen leadership training program for at least 120 ninth- to eleventh-graders from Michigan and southwest Ontario who meet with Rotarians for a three-day camp.
Topics include leadership fundamentals and ethics; communication skills, problem solving and conflict management; and community and global citizenship. Some inbound exchange students attend. Students may take part in team-building activities involving high ropes courses, giant swings and zip lines.
The nine Rotary clubs in Macomb County all welcome new members. They are the clubs of: Anchor Bay (New Baltimore-New Haven), Eastpointe, Mount Clemens, Macomb, Richmond, Romeo, Sterling Heights, Utica-Shelby and Warren.
Information on Rotary clubs and activities in the district is available at rotary6380.org.
Hoedown benefits charities
The Mount Clemens Rotary Club’s Hoedown Spring Zing is 6-11 p.m. May 5 at Zuccaro Banquets and Catering, 46601 Gratiot Avenue, Chesterfield. It benefits Baker College, Care House, CARE of Southeast Michigan, Joan Rose Foundation, Macomb Family YMCA, Macomb Food Program, Martha T. Berry, Turning Point. Tickets are $100 for open bar, food, bull riding, dancing, live auction and baskets, hoe down attire. Contact Julie Huttenlocher at 586-914-2552 or 586-731-2938. See mountclemensrotary.org or the club’s Facebook page.
Send service club and veterans news to: Linda May at lindamay@ameritech.net. Or mail c/o The Macomb Daily, 19176 Hall Road, Clinton Township MI 48038. Phone 586-791-8116.