It’s about so much more than pancakes
By Lori Ruhlman
Skaneateles Rotary
Exchange students and their host families become the stars of the show each year at the Rotary Club’s Father’s Day Pancake Breakfast. This is where the current youth exchange students see all of the people who have made a difference during their stay in Skaneateles. It is also the place where Skaneateles kids who are going abroad – or have been abroad – thank the Rotary Club by helping at its biggest event of the year.
This year’s inbound students, Kashyap Lalwala and Eduarda (Duda) H. de Freitas, will be serving coffee and juice this year and helping the High School Interact Club give away free balloons in honor of the 50th anniversary. Kashyap and Eduarda have had a great year, and especially thank the families that have hosted them and made it all possible. (Three families for each student).
Also serving will be next year’s exchange students who will leave Skaneateles this summer to spend a school year in another part of the world. They are Skylar Chilson Wood (Paraguay), Gianna Eidel (Japan), Sarah Euto (Austria), and Cole Goodchild (Taiwan).
In addition, tenth grader Sharla Dart will head to Sweden with the summer Short Term Exchange Program.
The breakfast is also staffed with the large youth exchange “family” of volunteers who have hosted students over the decades. Since 1996, the Skaneateles Rotary Club has welcomed 79 in-bound Rotary Youth Exchange students and has sent 105 out-bound students, including those from our current 2017-2018 Rotary year, according to Rotarian Chuck O’Neil. (This does not include those leaving this summer, nor any short term exchange students over the years).
“Thinking about those 79 in-bound students over the years, that possibly means that over 200 different families in the community have hosted — even counting those that hosted more than one time,” said O’Neil. “That’s a lot of families and pancakes!”
By opening up their homes, host families make Skaneateles richer – and they help Skaneateles students venture around the world. (It truly is an “exchange.” In order to send students, a community must host students). Youth exchange students with Rotary typically have three host families in a year, giving students a chance to experience three different families, and giving more families in the community a chance to experience different cultures.
Rotary is always looking for new families interested in hosting (and they don’t need to have high school students), said Youth Exchange Officer Gard Lorey. Lorey’s family has hosted several times since their son, Tyler, went to Chile after high school.
Jim McQuiggan joined the Skaneateles Rotary Club after son Ryan participated in STEP (Short Term Exchange Program) and then the yearlong exchange. He believes in the program because he saw first-hand the difference it made – and continues to make – in Ryan’s life.
The entire family’s world expanded via Ryan’s many friends from all over the world, and as a result of their hosting. “I encourage anyone with children to look into being a host family,” said McQuiggan. “Rotary makes positive impacts through local worthy cause projects but the lifelong benefits of the Rotary Exchange program are priceless.”
