Going off of last week's post, this week I'm going to talk about the origins of Rotaract and Interact, the high school and college versions of Rotary. Interact was created in 1962 by Rotary International to provide opportunities to do community service to children of school age. The word "Interact" comes from the words "International" and "action." Each Interact club is sponsored by a Rotary club and the Rotarians are supposed to be the guides of the Interactors. An Interact club can only exist if there is a Rotary club that is supporting it. Seeing the success of the Interact clubs, Rotary International created Rotaract in 1968 in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Rotaract" comes from "Rotary" and "action." This first Rotaract club was chartered by the Rotary club in Charlotte, and was designed for young men and women from ages 18 to 30. Like Interact, each Rotaract club is under the guidance of a Rotary club as well. Both Rotaract and Interact have done well in the past decades, with their numbers increasing exponentially. Both of them have several hundred thousand members in nearly every country.
