Yadkin Early College Interact Club members Estephanie Sanchez, Joselyn Padilla and Hannah Sanchez join members of the Yadkin Rotary Club for a clean up day as part of the Adopt-a-highway program.
Students from the Yadkin Early College Interact club assisted the Yadkin Rotary Club with roadside trash pick up trash recently, just one of many projects the group is involved with.
“We are always glad to have the Interact club help with our projects. The members are enthusiastic and hardworking and the work gets done in record time,” said Rotary member Susan Gmeiner.
Interact is a club for youth ages 12-18 who want to connect with others in their community or school. Interact club members have fun while carrying out service projects and learning about the world. While Interact clubs receive guidance from individual Rotary clubs, they govern and support themselves.
Patrica Sarabia, Yadkin Early College Interact Club sponsor said the group has been very active with projects lately, despite the changes to schedules due to the pandemic.
“Our club has just finished [last week in October] fundraising for their global project,” Sarabia said. “They fundraised for the Joy International Organization through the Barefoot Mile in Elkin on Oct. 24 by doing a virtual walk. Their goal was $300 and they (pandemic and all) collected almost $600 dollars that will go towards helping with the rescue, restoration and reintegration of trafficked teens and women.”
“I’m so proud of their hard work,” Sarabia added.
“We weren’t sure whether we would be able to complete our required projects this year, but we began meeting through Zoom at the end of August and quickly realized that our students were looking for some kind of normalcy in the school year so that led us to start planning our projects,” she said. “They completed their local project back in September by holding a very successful Blood Drive and promoting it virtually until we filled all appointments. Then, they worked during lunch at school selling lollipops to raise money for our annual scholarship.”
To date the group has about $650.
“I was blown away by their hard work bringing in that amount in a span of two weeks. In the middle of all of this, they also managed to create a design for their yearly t-shirt, which commemorates this year. We are thankful that the Rotary Club provides these shirts at no cost to them and we thank them for also supporting and helping lead this club by providing volunteer opportunities for them. I’m really proud of their hard work despite the circumstances that this year has brought in,” Sarabia concluded.
Kitsey Burns Harrison may be reached at 336-258-4035 or on Twitter and Instagram @RippleReporterK.