Rotary Youth Plant Trees

 

Rotary students left behind a living memento as they were in Mount Vernon for a training day. Eighteen Rotary Youth Exchange high school students from Rotary’s Northern Iowa district (District 5970) planted two trees as a service project in early April. “One goal of Rotary is to promote sustainability, and this youth exchange group has chosen as their group project a goal of improving the environment,” said Rotary District 5970 youth exchange chair Elizabeth Daly. The trees, a gift from the Trees Forever Endowment, were planted on the Nature Trail and replace two trees in the park that had died after being moved from their original location. The founding president of Trees Forever, Shannon Ramsay, and two Cornell College environmental science majors volunteering with Trees Forever, Carly Pierson and Jennifer Walter, were part of the planting. Staff from the City of Mount Vernon prepared the trees and the site. Mount Vernon was host for a training session for 11 American students being sponsored by Rotary clubs in District 5970 to go abroad next school year and live with host families. The Americans will attend high school in their host countries, learn the language and customs there, and be ambassadors for their sponsoring Rotary clubs. These outbound students from the Northern Iowa Rotary district will leave in August to live for a school year in Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Paraguay and Spain. Seven Rotary students from other countries staying this school year with families in Iowa were at the training session to share tips with the outbound students.