Rotarians worldwide recognize their responsibility to support the educational and ethical development of youth.

Long Beach Rotary Youth Service Projects

Centennial Legacy Gift to Long Beach Library

To celebrate its centennial in 2017, the Rotary Club of Long Beach chose to leave a Centennial Legacy Gift to the new downtown Long Beach Public Library. RCLB raised over $300,000 to fund two rooms and book shelves in the library that opened in September 2019 – the Storytime Theatre and the adjoining Early Childhood Literacy Area. Like so many Rotary Clubs, early childhood literacy is a main club focus. Over $735,000 has been raised in the past 20 years for our Reading by 9 program to purchase books for LB Unified School District elementary school libraries and classrooms. Supporting the City of Long Beach’s new main library was a natural and unanimous choice of the club when it came to deciding on its centennial project. The club recently held its weekly lunch program at the new library and many members had a chance to take a first-hand tour of the rooms where so many young children are enjoying the interactive, educational activities, and selecting books to check out.

Feeding the Future

An Interact club can be sponsored by a local Rotary club to help high schoolers not only learn about Rotary, but to create its own community service projects. Leadership development conferences and opportunities to engage with other Interact clubs in the Rotary district are also available. Currently, our club sponsors Interact clubs at Millikan and Poly High Schools. Other schools, such as Jordan and St. Anthony, are working on implementing Interact clubs as well.

We heavily encourage Interact members to apply for Long Beach Rotary scholarships that may be available to them.

Rotary Club of Long Beach - Feeding The Future 2
Rotary Club of Long Beach - Interact

Interact Club

An Interact club can be sponsored by a local Rotary club to help high schoolers not only learn about Rotary, but to create its own community service projects. Leadership development conferences and opportunities to engage with other Interact clubs in the Rotary district are also available. Currently, our club sponsors Interact clubs at Millikan, Poly, and St. Anthony’s high schools.

We heavily encourage Interact members to apply for Long Beach Rotary scholarships that may be available to them.

Rotaract Club

A Rotaract club brings together adults 18-30 years old to perform community service projects, develop personal and professional skills, and have fun. A Rotaract club can be sponsored by a local Rotary club either for students attending a local college/university, or as a community club for those who are primarily already in the work force. Our club sponsors a Rotaract club at CSULB and a Community Rotaract club.

Rotary Club of Long Beach - RFH4_980-2
Rotary Club of Long Beach - Rotary Youth Exchange

Rotary Youth Exchange

Rotary Youth Exchange enables high school students to travel abroad and experience new cultures, be an ambassador, and build friendships that last a lifetime. Long-Term Exchanges usually last one year, during which the student attends school, lives with their host families, and becomes a member of the community. Short-Term Exchanges can range from one to many weeks, during which the families of the exchange students host both students in one country, then the students travel together to be hosted by the other family.

The Rotary Youth Exchange program is coordinated through Rotary International and leverages the international reach of Rotary to coordinate and oversee the exchanges. The program is completely administered by Rotary club members, keeping program expenses low. In recent years, Long Beach Rotary has hosted students from Italy and France, and sent Long Beach students to Ecuador and Germany.

If you are interested in being a host family for an exchange student, or if you are a student interested in participating in an exchange, please contact the Long Beach Rotary office at rotary@rotarylongbeach.org. Also, please visit the Rotary District 5320 Youth Exchange website.

RYLA - Rotary Youth Leadership Awards

This is another opportunity for a Rotary club to support leadership development in youth. Our club sponsors 6-8 students to attend an annual camp designed to bring high school leaders together. The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards is a complete scholarship awarded to men and women of high school age who are leaving their junior year and will be in next year’s senior high class. The intent of the program is to prepare these students for leadership roles in their senior year and beyond.

Rotary Club of Long Beach - Student Sat Courageous Citizens

Service Above Self Awards

Rotary regularly recognizes those in Long Beach who are making a difference in the community through several awards programs.

RYLA – Rotary Youth Leadership Award: Long Beach Rotary supports this Rotary International program by sponsoring 4-6 students each year.

Service Above Self: Seniors from 8 different Long Beach area high schools are honored every year for their service to others by inviting them to a Rotary meeting and presenting them with an elegant plaque for their Service Above Self.

Rotary Club of Long Beach - TEK

Teaching Ethics to Kids

To mark the Rotary Club of Long Beach’s 100-year anniversary, Rotarians developed a legacy gift based on the “Four Way Test”, the ethical compass of Rotarians world-wide. The gift created in partnership with the Long Beach Unified School District is a novel card game for the school course that teaches Foundations of Ethics using kid-friendly, soccer-based terms. Middle school students will soon be asking, “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”