Jennifer Yamauchi introduced student club President Esmeralda, who did a pretty darn good job directing her portion of the meeting. Esmeralda welcomed all of us to GVHS and for supporting the club through the school year. Esmeralda coached us into all participating in an “icebreaker”, since we sat at mixed Interactor/Rotarian tables. A competitive game of “Rock-Paper-Scissors” began at each table until a winner from each table surfaced. The winners from each table competed with other table winners until the final two winners out of approximately 60 people participated. I would not have mentioned the number of people participating, or even mentioning this silly game if it were not for Jerry Starr, Yes, Past President Jerry Starr who made it all the way to the final round. Yeah, you guessed it. Don’t ever bet on a young buck over the senior farmhouse stallion, as Jerry won in classic fashion over one of the students!
 
President Esmeralda then drew our attention towards the morning’s project. At each table where we were seated, there were community service topics written out for display, each different, each significant to the Interact Club. These topics represent the Interact Club’s areas of service, much like our own Breakfast Rotary areas of service. Over the remainder of the meeting we had the opportunity to have student “subject matter experts” rotate to each of the tables to educate us and solicit responses from the more experienced Rotarians how they can enhance the level of service and program effectiveness for students in the Interact Club toward each of their service areas.
 
We were recipients of learning about GVHS Interact Club’s pursuit of the challenges of “Feeding the Homeless”, “The Impact of RYLA”, J.J. Legacy’s high school “Got the Dot” program, and even “Pumpkin Unloading”. Through this interactive (Interact) process, we learned from the students and the students learned from us. Rotarians had a great opportunity to provide insight into the students’ club projects, and offered ideas for resources to help the students’ projects become more impactful. In the matter of time it took to share ideas, I am pretty sure we will be helping the Interact Club fulfill their fundraising efforts next year. Hint: Since Darin Blunt is not slinging Girl Scout cookies anymore, homemade tamales could be in our future. Cool, I heard there is even a veggie version offered. Yum Yum