Fellow Rotarians,
 
After a two year of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rotary Youth Exchange is poised for a comeback in Rotary Year 2022-2023. While that may still seem far away, there are several important deadlines for students in District 5610 looking to participate in a future exchange.
 
Outbound Students
District 5610 will being accepting club nominations of potential outbound students for the 2021-2022 Rotary Year starting September 1. Students must be 16 to 18 ½ at the time of departure (typically August 15 or thereabouts) and in good academic standing at their school. Clubs should interview students and make recommendations to the district by the middle of October, after which the district will interview students and select finalists. Students will then submit a complete application by December 1 to Central States Rotary Youth Exchange for placement. 
 
Please be promoting this opportunity!
 
Students and clubs can visit https://www.csrye.org/ or https://www.rotary.org/en/our-programs/youth-exchanges to get general information on the program. For specific questions, please contact Cindy Bailie, Outbound Coordinator, or myself Patrick Morrison, District Rotary Youth Exchange Chair.
 
Inbound Students
District 5610 is committed to host at least three inbound students in 2022-2023. If your club is interested in hosting a student, please send me an email at Patrick.Morrison@usd.edu. I can provide information on responsibilities, expected club costs, and the like. For those of you who remember the headache of the past trainings and paper forms, you will be happy to know that our transition to Central States Rotary Youth Exchange multidistrict has made this process much easier – and digital. As a reminder, it is not a requirement to send a student to host a student, so all clubs are eligible to host.
 
Call for Volunteers
Lastly, we are looking for Rotarians interested in joining the 5610 RYE team. If you have any Rotarians interested in helping out, please let myself or Doug Lind know.
 
Sincerely,
Patrick Morrison | Chair, District 5610 | Rotary Youth Exchange
 
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire” – Attributed to W.B. Yeats