Interactors to Gather at Cottonwood
By PDG Art Harrington - RC of Bullhead City
 
An expected 500 Interact club members and Advisors from around the state, including delegates from Laughlin, NV, and Needles, CA, will be hosted by the Interact Club of Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood on Saturday, February 25.
 
Headlining the 4th Annual Interact District Conference will be featured speakers David Talbot and Scarlett Zinggeler. 
 
A Colorado Rotarian and founder of the non-profit Crutches 4 Africa organization, David is a professional photographer and a Polio survivor who will share how lives are being transformed in Kenya by the gift of mobility that he and our Interactors are working together to make possible. 
 
 
Scarlett, who has been an Interact leader, a RYLA delegate and Junior Counselor, who experienced an incredible Rotary Youth Exchange year in Poland, and is now spearheading the formation of a Rotaract club at Grand Canyon University, will be challenging the assembled Interactors to take full advantage of the incomparable opportunities Rotary offers youth, which she has personally experienced. 
 
The winner of this year’s Interact District Video Contest will be announced, and the top three videos submitted by the Interact clubs for the annual competition will be shown at the Conference.  Interact clubs that have earned the new Interact Clubs of Distinction recognition will also be announced and honored.
 
Perhaps most anticipated will be the revealing of the identities of the four Interact Ambassadors to Kenya who have been selected from the Interact applicants from around the state who have been vying for one of the four positions.  These Interact Ambassadors will be traveling together in June to Kenya to assist our Arizona Interactors’ international partners in Gilgil, Kenya, with the distribution of the crutches and other mobility devices to disabled recipients in the Rift Valley of Kenya.  Interactors throughout the state have been working this year to collect these mobility devices for shipment to Kenya, and the Conference delegates will be participating in the wrapping of the cutches to prepare them for shipment.
 
This Interact Conference will be led entirely by Interact District Council members from Interact Districts 5490 and 5510, including their serving as facilitators for the breakout discussion sessions on three key topics designed to help strengthen the participating Interact clubs.  And, as always, the Conference will include the popular Advisors’ Roundtable sessions, where Club Advisors can share best practices and learn from each other.
 
Online registration for the Interact District Conference must be accomplished via the Interact website, www.rotaryazinteract.org.  The registration fee, which includes lunch, is $25.  Checks are to be made payable to Rotary District 5490 and be mailed to Kathy Rossetti, Interact Registrar, 21405 W. Brittle Bush Lane, Buckeye, AZ 85396.  The registration deadline is February 15.  If you have questions, contact Ken Kelley, District Interact Chair, ken@kelleysinsurance.com, (623) 221-1956.  The Conference is from 9:00 – 4:00, with check-in at 8:30 a.m. at MUHS in Saturday, February 25.