On February 27, 2020, Marcela Sousa was on the front page of the Arizona Daily Sun which serves Flagstaff and northern Arizona.Marcela is a Rotary Youth Exchange Student who is studying at Flagstaff High School this school year. Mesa West Rotary is sponsoring Marcela's monthly allowance for personal expenditures while she is in our district.
The photo shown in the article was taken when Marcella was the featured speaker at the Rotary Club of Flagstaff's February 4 meeting. At the meeting, Marcella talked about her homeland of Brazil as well as her aspirations of becoming either a journalist or an attorney. During her presentation, she told about her family and travels she's enjoyed with other Rotary Youth Exchange students and with her host families. During the course of the school year, she will stay with three different host families.
In providing information about their featured speaker at their meeting the Flagstaff Rotary Club did a great job of turning her story into a public relations outreach opportunity by including the following facts:
- Rotary clubs throughout the United States and the world are dedicated to "bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advance goodwill and peace around the world."
- President-Elect Carla Viola was quoted saying "We're a multi-generational, diverse group, and we're about fellowship and service. Come visit. There's a little something for everybody."
- Karl Eberhard, a Flagstaff architect, who has been a Rotarian for nearly thirty years was quoted saying, "I like doing community service, and I like to give back. It's a nice, varied way to serve." He added that one week he might be doing something locally, and another week, he could be in another country lending a helping hand.
Mesa West Rotarian, Donna Goetzenberger, is the Youth Exchange Chair for our District. She may not be able to attend many of our meetings, but she puts in countless hours managing this program and seeing that it is a quality experience for the students who have travelled her as well as the families who host them.
Being a host family is a wonderful way to enrich a Rotarian's family and friends with cultural diversity and inter-country friendships that can last a lifetime. Too often, older Rotarians who are empty-nesters don't even entertain the idea of being a host family since the inbound student would not have any schoolmates in the household. The truth is, the students have many experiences with peers in their own age group, but also enjoy forming bonds with American "grandparents" or "aunts and uncles."
It is already time for Donna to be recruiting host clubs for next year. Mesa West would need to have three host families - ideally in the same school district - willing to become involved in Rotary Youth Exchange more experientially than we are this year.