Interact Club

Interact is a self-governed, self-supported service and social club for young people, ages 14-18. The first Interact club was founded on October 28, 1962.

Current News

Interacting with the larger world
By Stacy Trevenon--[ stacy@hmbreview.com ]

When Laurel Bennett of El Granada first heard about Interact as a Half Moon Bay High School sophomore, she wasn't interested.
Now she's a senior and president of Half Moon Bay High's growing Interact club. And "life-changing" is the word she and other local teen Interactors use to describe their humanitarian trip to Mexico last month.
"After the trip, I feel the importance of doing community service," she said. "The world needs it."
Interact is a youth community service group through Rotary International. Half Moon Bay's Rotary Club sponsors an Interact group that does occasional community cleanups and runs the Candyland children's holiday event.
That didn't intrigue Bennett until March, when she attended an Interact "Top Gear" leadership conference and met fellow teen Will Bronitsky, Interact governor for District 5150, which spans San Mateo to Marin counties.
He and other Interactors told her about the planned trip to Mazatlan, Mexico, to distribute wheelchairs to the needy and toys to orphanages. They'd done that before. Suddenly, Bennett wanted to go along.
News of that trip also reached Millie Golder, Coastside Realtor and Half Moon Bay Rotary Interact advisor. "I made up my mind I was going to take (local) kids to Mazatlan," she said.
From Nov. 8 to Nov. 12, 17 teens and 22 adults went to Mazatlan, in Sinaloa, Mexico. There, they distributed wheelchairs, made home visits to recipients' families and visited orphanages to distribute toys and stuffed animals.
The team included three Half Moon Bay Interactors: Bennett and sophomores Zoe Galle (Golder's granddaughter) and Erin Dahl. It also included Golder, Bronitsky, District 5150 Interact advisor Greg Kuhl, other Interactors and parents.
On Thursday, the local trio, Golder, Bronitsky and Kuhl described the trip at the Half Moon Bay Rotary regular lunchtime meeting, also attended by other Coastside Interactors and several parents. Held at the high school, it featured a PowerPoint presentation put together by Interact members.
The travelers spoke of their heartfelt experiences and new perspectives gained while in Mexico.
"Some of the (homes) weren't heartwarming," Kuhl said. But, he added, "There are no 'wants' anymore to doing community service. There's a 'need.' This changed my life and I know it changed theirs."
On Day 1 the team distributed toys. Next day they assembled and delivered wheelchairs. Some recipients were born with deformities, others were injured. Many were elderly.
"That was what changed our lives," said Golder. "You see the poverty, you see why we do what we do."
"I was expecting to cry when I saw all the disabilities," said Galle. "When we lifted them from their chairs and gave them the wheelchairs, they were so happy. They made me forget about myself. It shows what we take for granted."
Helped by interpreters, the team made home visits in small groups, and also distributed soccer uniforms and equipment to young players.
Team members met families living in poverty, with many people packed into small makeshift homes, and gave out "humanitarian bags" full of clothes, toys and soccer items.
"People were just swarming" for the bags, said Galle.
"It was life-changing," said Golder thoughtfully. "Not only seeing this group of kids working together but realizing that only a few air hours away people are living worse than poverty-stricken."
She said she was impressed by the teens. "These were the most incredible teens I have ever been around. They never broke rules, never dressed inappropriately. They worked their tushes off."
Reactions ranged from shyness to gratitude to delight to tears.
"We literally lifted people out of their chairs and into wheelchairs, giving them freedom and mobility to get around," said Galle.
She told the Rotary assembly about the little girl, 5, and how it was "amazing to see the impact it had on her - a $75 wheelchair and a (stuffed) bear. We have changed their lives."
Bennett told of the older woman who received a wheelchair in stoic silence until, upon leaving, the Coastside girl reached out to her. "I shook her hand and she burst into tears," Bennett said. "She was really moved. It was happy but sad."
Many of the toys had been dug out of Interactors' own childhoods. Bennett gave away her old Beanie Babies. "It was something I didn't need and something somebody would enjoy more than me,' she said. "They were so happy ... with the smallest little thing."
At the meeting, Bronitsky said he plans to expand Interact in the district, and hold a fund-raiser by selling sports tickets, a home dinner cooked by the teens and more. The next project on the district Interact horizon is building a school in Honduras.
He urged the teens to spread word of Interact in their school. He wants to see schools in San Francisco and Marin County become more active with Interact.
In the meantime, the Coastside's Interactors aren't waiting on the next trip. They put together baskets with turkey sandwiches and delivered them to homeless and needy Coastsiders on Thanksgiving.
Teens in those areas share the experiences of Bennett, who says she wants to go on into "Rotaract" for college students, a Rotarian as an adult and become a doctor helping the needy.
"It was really touching and inspiring," she said of the trip. "(In Mazatlan,) they don't have anything and we're giving them a huge thing that helps them while changing their lives and the lives of their families."