Niwot's Interact Club aims to serve

Clubs abound at Niwot High School, but one new offering, the Interact club, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Niwot, stands out because of its focus on service.

“I’ve participated in various service opportunities, only to be disappointed by how impersonal and unrealistic they sometimes are,” said Vidhya Dev, NHS senior and club secretary. “Interact, however, is completely different. It is a club filled with people that truly want to help others.”

The club started in the summer of 2015, after several NHS students returned from Rotary Youth Leadership Training (RYLA) in Estes Park. “I called a couple of those students to see if they’d be interested in starting a club and they were so excited and enthusiastic,” said Rotary member and Interact club founder Robyn Landry.

“It was really her passion to get involved with the high school kids and get them involved in service,” Rotary member and club co-sponsor Jim Barbour said of Landry, whom he applauds for pushing through the lengthy approval process to launch the club.

Barbour also gives credit to NHS social studies teacher Amy Mudukutore. “She is the school’s Interact Advisor. All clubs must have a teacher sponsor. She is great and we are thankful we found her.”

Though only in existence for a year and a half, the club has already had great impact on the community. Various fundraising events, such as a citrus sale or a pie-in-the face challenge, have brought in money to support projects such as sponsoring a college student in Nepal, providing emergency shelter to disaster victims, or contributing to the Niwot Children’s Park.

Interact members played a large role at the Rotary’s fall Oktoberfest event. “The Interact club took over and ran, with Robyn’s and my supervision, the children’s area,” said Barbour. “That included things like painting pumpkins, drawing, a bean bag game, and bouncy castle.

“They scheduled out coverage for all the events. We [Niwot Rotary] earned $11,000. Having the kids there includes the families more, so their participation was really important. The students also collected donations and raised $118 toward ending polio.”

This past November, Interact launched a new after-school event at NHS to celebrate International Week. “The purpose was to spread global awareness, and we asked many of the other clubs at Niwot to help us,” Dev explained.

“About 10 or so clubs joined up, and each one was assigned a country. Each club would run a booth with an activity for students to do relating to their country’s culture. For example, Bollywood Club did Henna tattoo designs for India.

The overall idea was that students would come, get a passport and have to do all the activities. If they got all the stamps from the different booths, then they were eligible to get extra credit from a world language, English or history teacher. It was a lively and joyful experience that I will never forget,” he said.

This spring, the Interact club is planning a badminton tournament to raise money for Heifer International. Interact is also working on forming a partnership with Niwot Elementary School. “We’re looking at a project called Peaceful Schools,” Barbour said. The program, run by a Canadian non-profit organization, would pair high school students as mentors with elementary classrooms, and use picture books to initiate conversations on issues like bullying.

Both Barbour and Landry have high praise for the students they’ve worked with in Interact. “They are just a wonderful group of kids with lots of potential for leadership and service,” Landry said of her club members. “The only qualification is they have a big heart.”