Building young leaders, The Rotary Club of Kittery's Rotarian of the Year is setting a new standard for youth development.
As one of the final actions of their term, the Club President recognizes the "Rotarian of the Year". For the last several years Blayne Matty has taken the role of advisor to the R.W. Traip Interact Club. Interact is the High School version of Rotary and while all students are encouraged and expected to get involved in some community effort, the Interact club member not only support their communities existing efforts, they also have activities and service projects of their own.
Since Blayne has been their advisor the Traip Interact club has grown to now about 60 members in a school with roughly 300 total students. The Club members are everywhere helping in the community and planning their own projects. Our club has enjoyed working with them on many projects in town each year.
Every year the clubs in our Rotary District sponsor students to attend the June Rotary Youth leadership Camp (RYLA) where they meet other students from around the region and develop leadership skills. Over the past years the two Rotary Clubs in Kittery have had interest from and been able to send 1 or 2 students each year. The last two years, with Blayne's encouragement, in 2023 the town had 12 students at camp, this year 10 are attending. This impact of having 15% of the incoming junior class attend the leadership program together is remarkable.
We thank Blayne for her service to our community, and we are honored to recognize her as our "Rotarian of the Year"