The Summerland Rotary Club welcomed their latest exchange student to the community last week.
It took almost 20 hours of travel for Ta-Wai (David) Wu to make his way to Summerland from Taipei in the Republic of China.
For the next 10 or 11 months, Wu will attend Summerland Secondary School and learn about life in Canada while Josiah Baran, this year’s outbound student, will be going to school and learning the culture in Milan, Italy. Wu and Baran are among 7,000 Rotary Exchange Students currently learning a new culture and language around the world.
For over 40 years, the Summerland Rotary Club has sponsored an outgoing and incoming exchange student, working with Rotary Districts around the world.
The program is open to students going into grades 9 to 12 interested in a year-long cultural exchange to another country as well as families interested hosting for two to three months and learning firsthand about another culture.
For information, contact Bob Van Balkom, youth exchange officer for Summerland Rotary, at ravanbalkom@gmail.com, or by mail at Box 232, Summerland, B.C. V0H 1Z0.