Interact Expects Best Year Yet
By PDG Art Harrington
THINK BIG – VERY BIG!  Led by District Governor Bridget MacDonald, and Chief Asst. Governor Dylan Boyd, Interact District 5490 is on a fast track to making 2016-17 their best year so far.  A half-dozen new Interact clubs were added last year, totaling now more than 50 Interact clubs that are either active or in the organizing stages.  A number of them still need to be officially chartered by Rotary International.
 
After achieving an Interact District Conference registration of 376 last year at Central High in Phoenix, with the merging in of District 5510’s Interact clubs beginning this year, Bridget and her District Council are projecting and planning for a registration of 500 for the 2017 Interact District Conference.  It will be hosted by the Interact Club of Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood on Saturday, February 25, 2017.
 
Crutches 4 Africa was tested as a pilot international service project in 5490 this past year.  With the lessons learned, the District Council is expanding statewide this Interact-led project this year, inviting Interact and Rotary clubs in all three Arizona districts to join them in collecting crutches, canes, walkers, wheelchairs and other mobility devices to wrap and ship to our district’s Interact and Rotary partners in Kenya.  Their goal is to bring together enough of these devices at their District Conference on Feb. 25th to fill a 40-foot shipping container.  They are also hoping to send at least 4 Arizona Interact representatives to Kenya next summer to help unpack and distribute those mobility devices to those who need them most in the Rift Valley of Kenya.
 
 It has just been announced that American Furniture Warehouse has agreed to continue as Interact’s corporate partner for this project.  Their stores will be used as drop-off points for the mobility devices, as well as providing temporary storage for them, until they can be transported to Cottonwood, where they will be wrapped for shipping, as the hands-on project at the Interact District Conference.
 
The size of the Interact District Council, which holds monthly online meetings, is being expanded this year.   The number of Assistant Governors has been increased from 9 to 14, to better serve the growing number of clubs.  A key event is the annual District Council Leadership Training & Planning Retreat, which is being held at Hualapai Mountain Park, south of Kingman, the weekend of July 29-31.  All of the student leaders who apply, are interviewed and who are selected for positions on the District Council must agree to attend this mandatory working retreat.   Interact Chair Ken Kelley, along with Asst. Chair Angelo Rossetti, are busy working on this retreat, along with plans for leadership training this fall for clusters of the Interact clubs in the schools which are assigned to the AGs.  Angelo organized a successful pilot training model in the Buckeye area last Spring, and it is hoped this can be expanded this year to help strengthen the leadership of all of the Interact clubs in the district.