Northfield Rotary Club

The Club held a Youth Exchange fundraiser, dubbed To China and Back, at the Middle School last night.  See the album of 60+ photos or this slideshow:

On Saturday, Jan. 26, the club is hosting the ‘To China & Back’ fundraiser featuring Gao Hong and the Chinese Dance Theater.

Club members Tom Durkin and Rick Estenson are leading the team to put this on. At today’s club lunch, Rick emphasized that a Chinese food dinner will be served at the event, so come hungry.

See this Dec. 5 Northfield News article on the event. The poster (PDF) includes this info:

The Northfield Rotary Club and the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Division are proud to present a Chinese New Year Celebration featuring Ms. Gao Hong, world renowned Pipa Soloist.

January 26, 2008 - Northfield Middle School Auditorium - Doors Open at 6:00 pm

Reserved Seating - Advance Tickets: $20 Adult, $15 Student At the Door: $25

Proceeds to Benefit Northfield Rotary Club International Youth Exchange. Tickets available through the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Division - 1651 Jefferson Parkway. Please call 507-664-3649 for details and more information.

Here’s a YouTube video of Gao Hong speaking and performing.

Some of the 08-09 outbounds were at the Club lunch today.

L to R (click photo to enlarge): Naomi Miessler, Rachel Miessler , Ronya Gettis, Greta Klawiter-Lien.

This will be a record year Youth Exchange Outbounds with 12.

Rachel Miessler to Denmark
Greta Klawiter-Lien to Brazil
Ronya Gettis to Chile
Juli Elmer to Thailand
Naomi Miessler to Lithuania
Ethan Neal to Bolivia
Meara O’Neill to France
Michael Goodwin to Taiwan
Jessica Klimisch to Argentna
Margy Shuster to Germany
Sam Studer to Slovakia
Breanna Tetrault not yet decided

Linnea Johnson, an outbound student in Brazil last year, presented to the Club at today’s lunch. Click photos to enlarge. Right photo: Linnea with parents Natalie Johnson and Keith Johnson.

I took this photo at last week’s lunch of club member Mark Quinnell (center) with two youth, Alexander Santos (left) and Javier Arevalo (right). Click photo to enlarge.

I asked our club’s Youth Exchange Coordinator Vicki Dilley for more info on these young men.

She wrote:

Alex is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He lives in Leblon, 2 blocks from the beach, next to the infamous Ipanema!  He is thrilled with the snow, and said to me this morning, “We South Americans always think this white fluffy stuff looks so fun, but we don’t know how cold it is with it!”

Alex is my daughter Riana’s host brother. She lived with his family last spring while studying at PUC university in Rio and she is there now with his family. We found his family by contacting Lino Krohling who was a GSE team leader here and stayed with us. She needed housing so I contacted him and he then contacted Sergio Misse who is the Youth Exchange officer in Rio and he knew Alex’s family as they live in the same building as Sergio. Small world when Rotary makes the connections!

Javier is one of the three students Rotary has now. He is from Macas, Ecuador in the Amazon forest and the Quinnell’s are hosting him. One great kid! He is a triathelete and Ecuador wanted him back while he was here to do a try-out for the Olympic team (I think I have that right).

Mathew Taylor, an outbound student in Bolivia last year, presented to the Club at yesterday’s lunch. Click photos to enlarge. Right photo: Mathew with parents Candy Taylor and Cliff Taylor.

Update 01/10: From this week’s Cogwheel:

Mathew Taylor had his travails during his year in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. But he emerged intact and grateful for the exchange experience.

The first three months were difficult. He struggled with his Spanish, had far too much alone time with his first host family and found his school experience uninspiring. On top of that, the drivers scared him to death, and he was mugged on Christmas Eve.

Not the best start, but with the turn of the calendar and a move to his second host family — remember Geri who spent a year in Northfield a couple of years ago? Her family — things turned around.

“Once I got past that, it was so much fun,” he said. “Everything went so fast and pretty soon, I was home again.”

Matt was able to travel throughout Bolivia with other  exchange students and found that to be the highlight of his trip. He also observed, sometimes first hand — an extremely dynamic, bordering on incendiary, political scene.

Matt is now back at Northfield High School and looking forward to a return trip to Bolivia.

Here are Northfield Rotary Club’s outbound Youth Exchange students and the countries they’ll be visiting for the 2007-08 year (click photos to enlarge):

Left photo, L to R: Zane Anway: Bolivia; Tyler Martinson: Sweden; Felicia Hansell to Thailand; Caila Hall: Germany; Rebecca Langer: Slovakia; Daniel Lohmann: Brazil; right photo: Jonathan Een Newton: Brazil; Not pictured: Jenna Huberg: India.

On the left: some of the exchange students and their parents won the games competition at the Northfield Rotary Summer Social. L to R: Zane with mom Karen and dad Jim Anway (far right); Mark Hansell and Teri Takehiro with daughter Felicia; Mary and Dave Huberg (daughter Jenna Huberg has been in India for a month already). On the right: Andrea Een, mother of Jonathan Een Newton, and the pine tree given to all outbound students’ parents by Rick and Kris Estenson. The idea is to give the parents something to nuture while their kids are away. The prickly pine needles add to the symbolism.

And a tip-of-the-blogger hat to Vicki Dilley for helping me with the names!

The annual Summer Social was held at Rick and Kris Estenson’s farm last night.

Above: the team that won the games competition. Click to enlarge and see the Summer Social photo album or this slidehow for the 60+ photos.

I took this photo of the Northfield Rotary Inbound Youth Exchange students for 2006-07 at the Northfield Golf Club back in December.

Click to enlarge.

L to R: Laura Putnina from Latvia, Daniel Auza from Bolivia, Agnes (Agi) Mallieke from Germany.