It is not always the larger groups that make the most difference. Those small, personal interactions can often mean just as much, or more.
That is the mission of Scarborough High School’s Interact Club, the high school division of Rotary International. Its projects are interaction-oriented and most involve direct contact with those they are helping.
Last Saturday, they put on a Valentine’s Day Party at the Veterans Home in Scarborough, the club’s largest project of the year. Club members baked and decorated, and spent time talking with the residents.
“I was expecting it to be more energetic,” said Meghan Lynch, Interact Club’s incumbent president and a junior at Scarborough High School. “But then you realize that a lot of the people in the home are in wheelchairs.”
But that did not deter them. Whether it was serving cider or listening to a story from a resident who helped take the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, the students made sure to talk personally with the attendants, and that is what Interact Club is about.
“They were all really happy to have us hanging out with them and brightening their day,” said Lynch.
The club is small but close. They do not participate in a wide swath of activities but instead become much more involved in a select few. They routinely volunteer at the soup kitchen and the Root Cellar in Portland, where they play with underprivileged children, and also helped sell Christmas trees with the Rotary Club in December.
The club is also organizing a team for the STRIVE dance marathon, an organization for children with developmental disabilities, and plan to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The Valentine’s Day party was a large independent project that came together after a few, slow months of planning.
“I went into [Interact Club] just looking to volunteer,” Lynch said. “But now I’m really passionate about what’s going on in the club. It’s really become a part of my life.”
She used to be a member of the considerably larger Key Club, the high school division of the Kiwanis Club. But she has found that she prefers Interact Club’s close-knit method of becoming personally involved.
“In Key Club, it was a really big organization so it was hard to know everyone you were working with and what events were happening,” said Lynch. “In Interact, there are few activities and everyone gets really involved. Everyone gets really passionate and makes a bigger difference.”
She could see that difference on Saturday in the Veteran’s Home, where, she jokes, “We interacted with everyone!” It might not have been extravagant but it brought a bit of vitality to the residents, and that is what is important, Lynch said.
And it is these personal interactions that have made Lynch and the other members of Interact, become so passionate about their work. When volunteering becomes so intimate, it becomes all the more difficult to stop.
“It’s really different from where we’re growing up,” Lynch said. “In school your never see the things that you do when you volunteer.”
She has been exposed to a much different world than high school, from underprivileged kids at the Root Cellar to the homeless at the soup kitchen to seemingly silent veterans with plenty to say.
“It makes you want to do more,” Lynch said. “But you can never do enough.”
Ali Pelczar is a junior at Scarborough High School. She is a member of the Interact Club.
Interact Club members, from left, include Mike Bamford, Hannah
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