KELLER ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE HISTORY

(Updated June, 2008)

Our Club has been involved with youth exchange since the first year we were chartered. Veteran club members may remember that our Club hosted students for a weekend each summer beginning in 1991. These were students, who were on the ESSEX (Eastern States exchange) tour from Rotary Clubs in the northeast part of the country. Their bus tour lasted four to five weeks. Gary Dunlap worked on the Rotary District Committee for five years as the ESSEX coordinator to place up to 300 students on this tour in homes for the weekend as they were traveling through the Metroplex.  And we can proudly say that Keller was always the club in all of Dallas-Fort Worth that hosted the most students for this weekend experience! The ESSEX tour unfortunately no longer exists, so our Club no longer has this opportunity to host for a weekend each summer. But this tour introduced many of us to youth exchange and laid the foundation for our Club’s long involvement in this program.

Our Club has participated in both the short-term summer exchange and long-term exchange programs of Rotary. We have sent students from Keller in the short-term summer program since 1995 to many countries in Europe as well as South Africa. And starting in 1992, our Club has hosted or sent at least one student each year in Rotary’s long term exchange program. That history is chronicled as follows:

1992: Thailand:  Paul Boonloet         

1993: Japan:       Renee Boldra  (outbound)     

1994: Japan:       Minaho Arai           

1995: Brazil:      Gustavo Kalil         

1996: Croatia:    Aida Grgic    

          Japan:       Amanda McCallum (outbound)

1997: Japan:       Ryoko Ono

1998: Belgium:   Matt Verhoeven

1999: France:      Florence Marot

2000: Japan:       Yohei Ono

          Argentina: Julieta Capdeville

2001: Germany:  Nicky Faulhaber

2002: Ecuador:   Cynthia Pineda

2003: Finland:    Tuukka Jarvinen

2004: Brazil:       Fabinho Ferreira

2005: Poland:      Julia Chruscielewska

2006: Belgium    Maggie Ray (outbound)

2007: Finland      Lane Smith (outbound)

2008  Spain         Jorge ? (co-sponsored with W.Falls)

2009  ?                 Mallorie Holquin (outbound)

Reta McCallum, a long-time Keller Rotary club member who is now with the Graham Rotary Club, was the driving force behind our Club’s continued experience in youth exchange. Reta had served as the District 5790 Youth Exchange Officer in past years, and was very instrumental in getting many of us involved and keeping us involved in youth exchange.

Our own Gary Dunlap has been involved in youth exchange as a charter member of the Club since our inception in 1990. Gary has also been a part of our District 5790 youth exchange committee since 2003. Gary was selected to be on the staff of SCRYE, our multi-state Rotary youth exchange bus tour. Gary traveled to Baltimore in June, 2003 and bravely boarded a bus for two weeks as a chaperone for approximately 50 foreign exchange students from Rotary Clubs in the South Central Region Youth Exchange (SCRYE).  The SCRYE tour has both an Eastern tour and a Western tour. The students on the Western bus tour visit the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; while those on the Eastern tour visit Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Hershey Pennsylvania, and Niagara Falls.

In order to insure that the Rotary Club of Keller has an ongoing effort in youth exchange, the Club created a standing youth exchange committee in 1995. The committee is currently chaired by Gary Dunlap. Lani Grunow, an honorary member of the club, is the other long-standing member of the committee. Lani serves as counselor for the inbound female students when the Club hosts an inbound student. Another current member of the committee is Bud Cross. If the current International Service Chair of the Club is not one of the above, then that person serves ex-officio on the committee also.  

In today’s global society, we feel the Rotary youth exchange program serves a vital need in the world to develop goodwill and understanding between people of different cultures. If anyone else in the Keller Rotary Club has an interest in youth exchange or wants more information about the program, please contact one of the committee members.