Independent Day School's Interact Club Touches Lives Near and Far

In December 2010, the Independent Day School in Middlefield established a Rotary Interact Club sponsored by the Middletown Rotary Club.  In less than six months the IDS Interact Club has done some incredible work to help those in need in their own back yard, in tornado damaged greater Birmingham Alabama, and globally! 

Interact is a Rotary-sponsored service club for young people ages 12-18.  There are over 10,000 Interact clubs in the world and over 40 active clubs in Connecticut.  Interact Clubs provide youth with opportunities to perform community service projects both locally as well as internationally within a framework of education and meaningful opportunities.  Each club is required to carry out at least two service projects annually.

Between December 2010 and April 2011, the Independent Day School Interact Club performed several community service projects.  Their most determined effort is to support one of Rotary International’s primary missions in cooperation with the Bill Gates Foundation--to totally eradicate polio in the world.  To do this, the Club members established a School Store with proceeds primarily targeted to end polio.  The Club learned that when a child is vaccinated for polio their pinkie fingertip is stained with a purple color so that the workers know they have received the vaccine.  The IDS students hosted a “Purple Pinkie” dance; students who gave a donation to polio had their pinkie fingernail painted with either purple or pink nail polish to signify their support to others.  After performing research, the students in the Club learned that each vaccine costs only two cents.  In six short months they raised $600 providing enough funds for 30,000 vaccines!

Locally, the Club supported the St. Vincent DePaul Soup Kitchen by collecting mugs, dishtowels and silverware which are much needed supplies to provide meals on a daily basis.  The students learned about the wide range of people who frequent the soup kitchen and dispelled preconceived myths about who uses these “community dining rooms”.  Two IDS Interact Club students, Stevie Mills and Ben Radcliffe, produced their own video about the project and what was learned.  Stevie Mills, a talented artist and film-maker at age 12, drew the film’s animation and singer-songwriter Ben Radcliffe produced a musical score for the video.  Several other students also visited the soup kitchen and shared lunch with its guests. 

For another project, the students made the decision to help the victims of the tornados in the Southern United States after watching news clips about the loss of homes and lives there.  The desire to do this was entirely a student-led effort; the tornados hit on Wednesday, April 27th and the Interact Club met on their usual Thursdays, the day after the devastation.  In that moment the students wanted to reach out to help people who had been affected by those tornados.  They sold blue and green bracelets for Field Day and dedicated the proceeds from their School Store for two months to fundraise approximately $250 for tornado victims in the South.   

After the money was raised, the Club had to find the "right place" to donate the $250.  Club Co-Advisor and Rotarian Cathy Branch Stebbins reached out to the Birmingham, Alabama Rotary Club for help.  She learned that the Birmingham Rotary Club was already deeply involved in the tornado relief efforts in their region.  In partnership with the Birmingham Public Schools, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Birmingham Zoo, the Literacy Council, United Way, and the Police Department, the Birmingham Club, the second largest Rotary Club in the world, chose to sponsor a Summer Youth Camp.   The camp is located in Pratt City right next to the most heavily hit area of Birmingham and will primarily serve students who were affected by the tornados. 

One of the things that the Birmingham Club learned that the tornado victims needed most was a return to a sense of routine and normalcy--the youth who had lost their homes deeply missed their friends, teachers and the normal schedule they had by going to school every day before the tornados hit. The summer camp was an effort to replace some of the normalcy and reconnect the kids with their friends and teachers during the summer while also helping to catch the students up academically.  It also provides much needed childcare to help the parents who were busy putting their homes and their lives back together. 

The six-week long camp offers art therapy and mental health counseling along with physical health services, field trips, and basic needs.  It is being staffed by area high school students providing them with important employment and is supervised by teachers of the youth, many of whom are volunteering their time just for the opportunity to reconnect with their students.  

The Birmingham Rotary Club was impressed that a small group of middle school students from Middlefield, Connecticut could comprehend the devastation so far away and cares enough about their community to reach out and fundraise for them.  It was only a little bit of money, but the gesture of love and support was so huge that the Birmingham Rotary Club offered to match the IDS gift from their own membership. 

One good turn deserved another, so Stebbins reached out to the Middletown Rotary Club and put forth a challenge to the approximately forty Middletown Rotarians to correspondingly match the money the IDS kids raised.  By passing a hat, the Middletown Rotary Club met and exceeded their goal and collected approximately $340 in a single meeting.  This, along with the gift from the Birmingham Rotary Club, the IDS Interact gift was more than tripled. 

The gesture from the two clubs provided the IDS students with a demonstrative lesson in how resources can be successfully leveraged and the leadership of the students successfully nudged the adults to follow their lead to give to a worthy cause. 

The impact the IDS Interact students have made in less than 6 months is remarkable.  According to Stebbins, “I am amazed at the spirit and creativity of these students.  All the adults had to do was give them wings and they just flew.  In just a few months they literally changed the world and made it a better place.  It has really turned on their desire to do more.” 

These young people have certainly have touched, too, the lives of the Middletown Rotary Club, reminding us all that even youth as young as 12 and 13 years old can make a big impact on the world--both locally as well as globally.