The Rotary Club held its annual Rotary International Leadership Conference at the Holiday Inn in Enfield, Conn., on April 2. Senior Rossano Butcher, Junior Kristen Bousquet, Sophomores Jessica Pashko and Alex Francisco attended along with Interact Club advisor Mrs. Jessica Olmo.
Students had been selected to attend the conference if they were an executive member of the Interact Club who did not attend last year or by being a candidate for an executive position next year.
Upon arriving, students had breakfast followed by a small presentation from the leader of the Rotary Club about a new project for polio that they are doing. He also introduced the new rotary theme for this year which is to look inside yourself to help others around you, according to Butcher.
Following this, selected advisers for either Interact or Rotary clubs gave presentations on their community service projects.
“My presentation was about the water for Ghana efforts we have (we have currently raised $1700) and we are trying to get to $5,000 so we can get that amount matched by Rotary International and send it to Ghana,” said Olmo.
After the advisers finished their presentations, the students made presentations.
The students from LHS did their presentation on all of the community service projects this school year which included the homecoming dance, gift wrapping for Habitat for Humanity, soup kitchens, Rays of Hope, and the upcoming Mini Relay For Life which will be held May 20 at the track in the back of the high school.
“Everyone we did the presentation for loved it because they loved Olmo’s presentation so much — they loved what we did to support her,” said Butcher.
Once the presentations were finished students broke up into groups of five to think of a problem in the world and a solution to solve it.
Butcher’s group came up with an idea to help solve childhood obesity.
“Our solution was to create recreational centers in which kids could go interact with other students instead of sitting at home playing video’s games,” said Butcher.