Patti Shales Lefkos
Special to The Morning Star
Once a week nine boys and nine girls, members of the WL Seaton Interact club, gather in the classroom of their sponsor, science teacher Kevin Yapps, to review projects. Meetings are brief, action oriented and collegial. It’s fun but no time is wasted.
Interact is Rotary International’s service club for young people ages 12 to 18. The majority of students in Seaton’s self-governed club, founded in 2006, are in grades 10 to 12. The club is sponsored by Kalamalka Rotary Club. Rotarians Andy Erickson and Jim Ferguson offer weekly support.
Students welcome the opportunity to be involved in fun, meaningful projects. One such project is Catching Cans. Students blanket homes in the school catchment with flyers explaining they will trick or treat for food bank donations instead of candy on Halloween. This year students challenged Kalamalka Rotary to gather more cans than they could. The students won, 479 cans to 375. In the end, of course, the Foodbank was the winner.
Interact club members operate several fundraising initiatives throughout the year including weekly Friday pizza sales.
“These are jobs I can commit to doing once a week. It makes good money,” says Seth Martens.
“Seaton students like pizza and it’s fun,” adds Sydney Grevatt.
Jack Cotter coordinates the recycling program for the club, a moneymaking service to the school and environment.
Each November Seaton Interact students run the coat check for the Kalamalka Rotary Dream Auction, earning tips. Funds from these events go partly to the purchase of supplies for backpacks to be filled with socks, toiletries, snacks and a Christmas card for homeless served by the Upper Room Mission. Funds also support Seaton school’s breakfast program.
During the spring term, their efforts turn to raising funds for other groups like Zimbabwe Project Society Polar Bear swim and the Jess4Kids Winter Carnival cross country ski and snowshoe events. Within Seaton Secondary they create Awareness for International Women’s Day on March 8 and plan to participate in the Walk for Alzheimer’s Walk on May 6.
Their major fundraiser is Sonic Sound Fest, this year slated for May 4. So far the lineup of local talent includes Vernon’s Shaugnessy Rose and indie artist ROYAL. Tickets are $5 for Seaton students, $10 for other students and adults. Tickets will be available at Seaton in April. Funds this year go to NONA Child Development Centre.
These passionate teens don’t limit themselves to local projects. Interact stands for International Action.
This year the club sent $750 to the Rotary Club of San Juan, Puerto Rico, toward a new roof for the San Juan Recreational Facilities. In the past support has been provided to feed female students in a hostel in Ethiopia and to purchase library books and help build boys and girls toilets for Devi Jal Kumari School, in remote Aprik Village in Gorkha province, Nepal.
Related: Junior Rotarians support school library in Nepal
Club members are planning a volunteer trip to the school in 2019.
“If a bunch of high school students can raise an average of $8,000 a year and complete all of these projects, think what they could do in university,” says Avril Baldauf, club president.
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