The Brundidge Rotary Club learned more about Rotary Club’s Interact Club for high school students and will consider sponsoring an Interact Club of its own in the near future.

Denine Richey, Rotary Sponsor for the Interact Club of Enterprise High School, was the program guest of the Brundidge Rotary Club Wednesday.

The Rotary Club of Enterprise chartered the Interact Club in May 2013.

Richey shared information about Interact and what steps the Enterprise Rotary Club took to get a high school club established.

There are 12,000 Rotary Interact Clubs with more than 250,000 members.

“Interact’s mission is to build tomorrow’s leaders today,” Richey said. “Rotary is all about helping people and that’s what Interact is about. It provides opportunities for young people to be involved in service projects in their own communities and on the international level as well.”

Richey said that, after the Enterprise Rotary Club made the decision to sponsor an Interact Club, the first step was to enlist a faculty advisor.

“To have an Interact Club, you must have a faculty advisor,” Richey said. “I had to ask three faculty members before one agreed. And, we got our foot in the door by offering a scholarship. We also participated in the open house for parents to make them aware of Interact and how it benefits the students and the community.”

Richey said that, in recruiting members, she used all available resources to reach the high school students including churches, the social media and friends of friends.

The Enterprise High School students were invited to fill out an “interest” survey.

“We had 100 students to fill out the forms and 60 joined,” Richey said.

The Enterprise Rotary Club elected not to have membership dues and gave each student who joined an Interact tee shirt.

“Interact is required to meet twice a month,” Richey said. “We meet once during school for short time and again on Sunday afternoon when we have time for a program. The club is required to participate in two service projects each year, a community project and an international project.”

Interact members must participate in 60 percent of the club’s activities and meetings.

Richey said the Enterprise Interact Club members have been excited and enthusiastic about participating in the community service project and in the ‘international’ project, which is to raise money for research into childhood cancers.

Richey said the Enterprise Club is still learning about Interact and finding different ways to be involved.

“Being a sponsor of an Interact Club is very rewarding,” Richey said. “We will be glad to assist (Brundidge Rotary Club) in any way.

“What I would like to see is for the Interact Clubs in our area to get together for an event. It would be good way for us to get to know each other and learn more about what each club is doing.”