The Westlock Rotary Club honoured the life of Dorothy Roberts last week during the eighth annual Dorothy Roberts Day — a day aimed at getting youth involved with the club.
A handful of students from R.F. Staples attended the Dorothy Roberts Day event on Thursday, Nov. 24 at the Westlock Inn, where they were told about the day’s namesake and the various opportunities available through the club.
“Dorothy Roberts was a pillar in our community,” said the club’s new generations youth coordinator Jim Smith.
“She was a very powerful woman who usually got what she wanted and in early 2000, she started to encourage or lobby the Westlock Rotary Club into doing more for students.”
Her lobbying created various programs with the club, including study abroad programs and various educational trips throughout Canada.
One Westlock student who benefited from these programs is Robin Latimer, who spent last year studying abroad in Sweden.
“It’s just a really good opportunity,” she told the other students, adding she felt they should each consider applying.
She said her biggest hesitation, which is shared by most students her age, was having to leave their families for an entire year, but told the students you quickly get over that once you are in your host country.
“It was really good because the bonds I made with those families, I still have. I still talk to them and I know that I’ll be going back to visit them,” she said.
Latimer spent the year with two host families, and was able to experience many things like skiing in the Swedish alps to visiting an authentic ice hotel to travelling above the Arctic Circle and seeing the northern lights in another country.
“I’ve done all these things because of Rotary,” she said.
Florence Waldner, the club’s youth outbound coordinator, said students between 16 and 17 can pick up applications from R.F. Staples Secondary School or St. Mary School if they are interested in studying abroad.
“You’re experiencing the culture of another country while being a student there. Participants live with Rotarian families in their host country and, of course, experience everything that that country has to offer,” she said.
Other programs open to students include various adventure trips, which are four to seven-day trips that focus on a range of topics including agriculture, forestry, citizenship, firefighting, technology and even music, Smith said.
These have been offered to youth since Dorothy Roberts Day began in 2003. Roberts died at the age of 94 on Oct. 21, 2010 in British Columbia, and Smith said the Westlock Rotary Club plans to keep her memory alive for years to come by holding this event.
