Although COVID-19 cut our school year short, Southmont’s Interact Club still accomplished great things.
Sixty members strong and in its second year as a club, Interact focused on two main service projects.
The first came in the form of our international project where we focused on raising money to provide a Christmas dinner and gifts for a small village in Haiti called Carrefour Sanon.
In October of 2019, our group sold baked goods at a local Rotary Club lunch meeting to help raise money for Haiti. In addition, our group sold hot chocolate at the Crawfordsville Christmas Parade downtown along with fellow Rotarians to raise even more money for Haiti.
We were able to raise $1,000 to provide a nice Christmas dinner and a gift for each child in that village.
Ron Hess, one of our Rotary sponsors, travels to Haiti annually to volunteer his time and was able to make sure the funding was used for dinner and Christmas gifts. He was able to provide touching images of the children eating and receiving their gifts at one of our Interact meetings.
Our local service project included a joint partnership with the Montgomery County Youth Service Bureau (YSB).
We worked with YSB to raise awareness during Child Abuse Prevention Month in April. We hosted a T-shirt design contest among the elementary schools with the theme “Kindness Matters.”
Fourth grader Zoey LaRue, from New Market Elementary, won the contest with her heartfelt design. April 3 was Go Blue Day and we encouraged our community to wear blue or their Kindness Matters shirts designed by LaRue.
Due to the stay-at-home order, we encouraged our community members to take pictures in their blue shirts and post them on social media platforms to help spread awareness of child abuse prevention.
One of the highlights of the year was having a joint meeting with high school Interact members and fellow Rotarians. Interact members we able to engage in conversation with Rotarians among our community.
The main speaker at the meeting was Rotary’s district governor. When the meeting concluded, Rotary members were invited to take a tour of Southmont’s career and technical wing.
We tried to make the best of quarantine by hosting a few Interact meetings on Zoom to be able to see our friends. Although it might have been a small gesture, Southmont Interact Club ended its year with social media appreciation posts to honor our teachers and let them know how much we appreciated their support, even through online learning.
The Interact Club at Southmont was able to make a difference not only locally, but worldwide, and that is something to be proud of this school year.
Elizabeth Truncone
2019-20 Southmont Interact Club President
