Press

By 94.9 FM WSJM Staff

By Pat Moody

Written by Arnold R. Grahl

Photos by Monika Lozinska

Chalk art by Nancy Pochis Bank Art Studio

Snow is falling in St. Joseph, Michigan. On this December day, the overcast sky, swirling flakes, and twinkling bulbs of holiday decorations have created a festive, almost Capraesque atmosphere along the brick-paved streets of this community, which sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Across the street from the Boulevard Inn, stairs lead down to Silver Beach, a 1,600-foot-long expanse of sand that is the town’s main attraction in warmer months.

Inside the inn’s restaurant, Jackie Huie sits at a corner table explaining the student mentoring program that the Rotary Club of St. Joseph & Benton Harbor started a decade ago – a program that has helped more than 400 local high school students learn more about their dream careers by connecting them with professionals in those fields.

The exposure to community service that the program provides has led students to start Interact clubs at six local schools, including one at St. Joseph High School that has about 150 members. As the Rotarians work their connections to find mentors for students, they have strengthened the bonds between the 140-member Rotary club and its community. And in small ways, the program is even building bridges between St. Joseph and its “twin city” across the St. Joseph River – Benton Harbor, a once-affluent manufacturing town fallen on hard times.

“I grew up in an entrepreneur family where my father did something I found interesting, and he allowed me to see behind the scenes,” says Huie, CEO of JohnsonRauhoff, an ad agency her father built. “I felt very fortunate to be able to do that, and I want that opportunity for others.”

Her wavy brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and her words come out in a rush: Everything about Huie attests to an intensity that gets results. In 2006, she met with fellow Rotarian Maria Kibler and a few others at Phoenix Rising, a café in the nascent arts district of Benton Harbor, to map out a plan. Kibler was a chaperone in the club’s student guest program, which brought two high school students to the club’s lunch meeting each week.

“The students were so great,” says Kibler, a senior vice president at St. Joseph-based Edgewater Bank. “We all started thinking there was more we could do.”

The new program they came up with asks students to describe their dream career in an essay, then matches each participant with a Rotarian who accompanies them on a “reverse interview” with a professional in that career. The students ask the mentors about their typical workday, what they like best about their job, and advice on how to achieve their goals.

Ten students chosen by counselors at St. Joseph and Lake Michigan Catholic high schools took part in the pilot phase of the program in 2007.

Rachael Kuehn, who was leaning toward studying medicine, was a senior when she participated in 2009.

“When I talked to her to see what kind of doctor she was interested in becoming,” Kibler says, “she said she was interested in business as well.” So the Rotarians set up Kuehn with two mentors – a local physician and Huie’s husband, Mike, a Rotarian who was then the global director for Whirlpool’s KitchenAid division. “She loved the business interview,” Kibler recalls.

Kuehn was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin when she realized she preferred her economics classes over science. She says that having shadowed both a doctor and a business executive a year earlier helped her decide to shift gears.

“In high school, it’s hard to picture what a day-to-day job looks like,” she says. “This program lets you sit with professionals in different fields and say, ‘Oh, this is what you do every day, these are the kinds of problems you deal with.’”

Kuehn earned her degree from the university’s School of Business and works as a senior financial analyst for L’Oréal in New York City.

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Inside the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center in St. Joseph, about 70 Rotarians sit around a dozen tables under ornate chandeliers. Two murals by Midwestern artist Richard Haas depict the commercial and recreational history of the twin cities.

Two students are reporting to the club today about their mentoring experience, the final step in the program. Kaila Nichols, a sophomore at St. Joseph High School, describes her visit to the newsroom of WNDU-TV in South Bend, Ind. Huie went with her to meet the station’s news director, C.J. Beutien; Nichols also talked with anchor Maureen McFadden and meteorologist Mike Hoffman.

“The most fun part was getting to sit in the studio in front of the camera and be an anchor for a day,” Nichols reported. “I’ve wanted to be a journalist for a long time. The experience reassured me that I want to pursue this when I head to college.”

Next up was Alysa Gould, a junior at St. Joseph High School. When Gould was 12, she had corrective surgery for scoliosis and remembers being mesmerized by the hospital’s complexity. For her reverse interview, she met with Ryan Dudley, chief of anesthesiology at Lakeland Medical Center in St. Joseph.

“It was amazing and funny and very helpful,” Gould told the club. “He told me not only how his job worked, but about the bad parts as well. He mentioned things I hadn’t focused on when I was researching the profession. I am definitely still interested in a career in anesthesiology.”

Ask club members why they got involved with the program, and they’ll mention their own mentoring experience – or lack of one. Rick Villa is the son of Mexican migrant workers; neither parent finished high school. His mother died when he was 15.

“I had nobody to look up to, nobody to ask, no way to see what my future might be like in different careers,” says Villa, who was one of the Rotarians who took part in the initial discussions about the mentoring program, and ran it in 2012-13 when Huie was club president. “When this program came about, I jumped in with both feet.”

Villa graduated from Michigan State University and worked as a civil engineer until he discovered his real passion, environmental consulting. He now runs his own company and tells students: “Find what you really want to do in life and make it work for you.”

Villa, who has served as a mentor and helps secure interviews with potential mentors, says the role of Rotarian host is equally important. The host helps prepare the student for the meeting with his or her mentor, sits in on the interview, keeps the conversation going if it flags, and if necessary reminds the student to ask for the mentor’s contact information.

“You’d be amazed,” he says. “Ninety-nine times out of 100 they will give the student a card and say, ‘When you start college and have questions about what classes to take, I will help.’ That’s pretty awesome to be able to contact a doctor or attorney or engineer and get that kind of advice.”

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St. Joseph High School benefits from a supportive community with a median household income of $55,012. Seven years ago, voters passed a $38 million bond for upgrades at St. Joseph Public Schools facilities. At the high school, renovations included new gymnasiums, a media center and library, and a dining area where the entire student body can eat at one time. The campus is equipped with modern equipment, including a food lab where students were whipping up pasta and meat sauce during a recent visit.

Across the river, in Benton Harbor, the median income is $18,085 (the per capita income of $10,309 recorded in the 2010 census was the lowest in the state). Inside Benton Harbor High School, floor tiles are worn, classrooms are either too chilly or too hot, and windows are papered over to shade the sun. In the carpentry lab, water drips from the ceiling into a bucket on the floor. “It’s been like that for six years,” notes the lab’s instructor. “We just work around it.”

The library, which includes a computer center, is locked for part of the day and is staffed only by part-time volunteers.

The school, built in 1921 for more than 2,000 students, now has roughly 600. Under Michigan’s “schools of choice” policies, parents can apply to enroll their kids in other schools outside as well as within the district. Of the nearly 5,100 students who live in the Benton Harbor Area School District, only 43 percent attend school in the district.

In the 2014-15 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, 3 percent of 11th-graders at Benton Harbor High School scored as “proficient” in math, 8.4 percent in science, and 13 percent in English language arts. About 30 percent of students fail to graduate within four years. These numbers have the Rotary club hoping to bring Benton Harbor High School, which contributed students from 2007 to 2010, back into the student mentoring program.

One of the success stories from Benton Harbor’s early participation in the mentoring program is Amber Thomas, who is pursuing a law degree at Michigan State after completing her undergraduate degree at Central State University in Ohio. She is the first member of her family to go to college.

The oldest of nine siblings, Thomas lived with her grandmother in Fair Plain, a more affluent neighborhood of Benton Harbor. Thomas says her grandmother pushed her hard to excel in school.

“Growing up here, you see all these societal problems, and as a kid you are not thinking about all of that,” she says. “But when you get older, people look at you differently. People say things. You go to your school and they don’t have books, but in St. Joseph everyone has a book and can take them home. And I thought, What can I do to change this? To me, the most effective way to change something is to have voice and power. Attorneys have that.’’

The program brought Thomas together with Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey and Judge Charles LaSata, members of the St. Joseph & Benton Harbor club. She also shadowed other judges, a dispatcher, and a forensic scientist during her junior and senior years at Benton Harbor High School. LaSata remembers his meeting with her well.

“She asked the right questions, and she was not intimidated by a circuit court or former district court judge,” he says.

Alvin Davis, Thomas’ school counselor, is certain the student program helped her. “I think you can have ideas, but they are not concrete; you don’t know which way to go,” he says. “The more experiences you have, the easier it is to make decisions.”

Thomas agrees. “It helped shape everything I was doing,” she says. “I got to see what I would be getting into as an attorney or if I wanted to be a judge, and to ask questions and form relationships. It turned my interest into a passion and also confirmed there was a need for more people like me in this field.”

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Between 30 and 50 students from four area high schools go through the program each year. Huie and Kibler work with school counselors to promote the program and refer students who would benefit the most. Interested students complete a 250-word essay describing their interest in a particular career. The club’s mentoring committee reviews the essays, searches for suitable mentors, and assigns a host Rotarian to each student in the program.

Sometimes finding a mentor is easy, as when a member of the club fills the bill. Other times, the process is more elaborate. Kibler remembers one student who was interested in equine law. “I didn’t even know what that was,” she says. But Stephen Smith, an attorney in their club, had just joined a law firm that included a leading expert in that field.

Huie also went to extra lengths to find a mentor for Hailey Bruce, a student who dreams of dancing on tour with Disney. Huie called a media agent for Misty Copeland, who has since been named a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

“I think I caught the agent off guard, and she just wanted to get this crazy woman off the phone,” Huie says. “But if you mention Rotary, it does carry credibility. And once she understood what we wanted, the agent set up the call, and Misty was happy to talk to our student.”

Any club can set up its own mentoring program using the materials on the program’s website, rotarystudentprogram .org, which include promotional posters, essay applications, and program announcements. The site also lays out step-by-step instructions for the program, from contacting school officials to inviting students back to make a presentation. Huie has been contacted by clubs in Texas and Tanzania looking to begin their own programs, and a club in Kansas found mentors for more than a dozen students in 2015 before the program director moved away, sending the program into a brief hiatus.

Thomas says that without people like her grandmother, Huie, and Davis investing their time in her, life would be much different. “Without a program like this, who knows where I would have ended up?” she says. “The experiences it opened up for me made me want to change, do better, and come back and help other kids have the same opportunities.”

Local program to help students explore careers goes international

By LOUISE WREGE

HP Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR — A mentoring program started by the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor is getting international attention.

The Rotary Student Program, which was piloted in 2007 by the club, will be featured in an upcoming Rotary International magazine, said Jackie Huie, a club member who helped start the program.

“It was really an experiment,” she said. “For years, we had been hosting students for lunch at Rotary.”

One day, she said, she and another Rotary Club member talked about doing more to help the students make connections.

“Most people aren’t fortunate enough to sit across from the person who does their dream, and everybody has a different dream,” she said.

Thus, the Rotary Student Program started in 2007 with 10 students from St. Joseph High School, she said.

“We lined up those 10 kids with 10 different professional Rotarians,” she said. “... It was always the profession the student proclaimed they had an interest in.”

She said the students are able to ask the professionals they are paired with anything they want. Huie said that during those interviews, the students are able to gain information they can’t get out of books.

“Then, they come back to Rotary and they have to report out what they learned,” she said.

Huie said that over time, the program was expanded to several local school districts. She said she met with the Rotary International president during the 2012 Rotary International Convention in Bangkok, Thailand, to talk about how to spread the program to other clubs.

She said the program received more exposure when it was chosen to be the topic of a breakout session during the 2013 and 2015 Rotary International Conventions in Lisbon, Portugal, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, respectively.

She said a reporter from the Rotary International magazine is visiting Southwest Michigan in June to put together the story, which will feature several local mentoring success stories, including one about Amber Thomas, a 2010 graduate of Benton Harbor High School. “She had a dream to become a lawyer, and she did not have the resources or the contacts to get started,” Huie said. “... at least five or six people came together to help her.”

Thomas said she participated in the program in her junior and senior years. She graduated magna cum laude from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a minor in criminal justice. She is now in her second year at Michigan State University Law School in East Lansing, with plans to graduate in 2018.

Thomas was recently given the Academic Excellence and Achievement Recognition Award by the Benton Harbor City Commission.

She said she is the oldest of nine children and is the first person in her family to go to college.

Thomas said she lives by two mottos – “I don’t believe in the impossible because I’m possible” and “Actions need to prove your words.”

She said the Rotary Student Program gave her hands-on experience and helped her create a professional network. This summer, she is working as an associate at Varnum LLP in Grand Rapids. In the fall, she will work as a clinician at the Chance at Childhood Clinic for abused and neglected children at Michigan State University College of Law.

By JOHN MATUSZAK - HP Staff Writer

ST. JOSEPH — The St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club’s Student Mentor Program and its founder, Jackie Huie, continue to garner worldwide attention for their efforts to connect young people with successful professionals in many fields.

Rotary International’s website has profiled Huie and the program she helped launch in 2007, that has grown locally and has been adopted by Rotary groups all over the world.

“I got a letter from a girl who came from a poor background, and through the program, she got a chance to meet with an attorney in town,” Huie, president of JohnsonRauhoff, a multimedia company in St. Joseph, told Rotary International. “It inspired her and gave her confidence to go to school and study law. She got accepted into four law schools and is on her way to becoming an attorney.”

Huie has made presentations at International Rotary conferences in Portugal and Brazil about the Student Mentor Program, and recently received a call from Panama.

While this online article was being put together, Huie received a call from photojournalist Monika Lozinska, with the Rotary International office in Chicago, who was interested in doing her own piece on the mentorship program.

Huie sent Lozinska profiles of students who had participated and who had been in touch with an associate editor of National Geographic Traveler magazine in Washington, D.C., with prima ballerina Misty Copeland in New York City, and author Rinker Buck, among many others.

Lozinska was so impressed that she will come to St. Joseph this spring to collect video sound bites from the students and their mentors. Jeff Fettig, president and CEO of Whirlpool Corp. and one of the first mentors to sign on, has agreed to be interviewed, Huie said.

The interviews, when completed, will be posted on the Rotary International website.

The mentorship program is just one of the efforts by the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club to connect with young people, to encourage them to perform community service and to explore career options.

The club has Interact groups with more than 200 Interact members at four area schools, and 40 will travel to the Dominican Republic this summer to install water filters and take part in a medical mission.

This month the Rotary Club will sponsor a “Career Speed Dating” event for area high school students to speak with people from several fields. Among the guest participants will be Michael Smiy, a Southwest Michigan native and now a Hollywood film producer who will talk to students via Skype.

“It’s important for Rotary to make an investment in young people,” Huie told Rotary International. “My own daughter is in Interact because of my membership in Rotary. I think her world is broader, and she looks at the world differently. We all do, because of what we’ve learned through Rotary.”

From Rotary.org

When Clara Montanez was a student, she never heard the word mentoring. The idea of having a role model help you pursue your ambitions was unfamiliar to her.

"You basically chose your career based on personal interest and hoped you could find a job," says Montanez, senior director of investment for Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. "I went the route of getting married and having children first, and started my career later in life. I had no model for how to do that."

That changed for Montanez the day a friend invited her to join Rotary.

"Frankly, I was dragged into Rotary. I didn't see a connection at first," says Montanez, who's been a member of the Rotary Club of Washington, D.C., since 2003. "But then I met several women, including Doris Margolis, who took me under her wing and started mentoring me on how to get more involved. I began seeing the value in having someone I could count on as a mentor, and I have become more of a leader in our club, in my community, and at work."

Rotary's mentoring opportunities motivated Montanez, Rotary's alternate representative to the Organization of American States, to help organize an event for International Women's Day, 8 March. The event, to be held at the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington, will feature Deepa Willingham and Marion Bunch, both previously honored as Rotary Women of Action. Rotary International Director Jennifer Jones will moderate the event, which will be streamed on World Bank Live.

Montanez says Rotary has given her a platform to mentor young women as they balance career and family, as well as manage the challenge of repaying student loans. According to a recent study by the American Association of University Women, the student loan debt burden weighs more heavily on women because of the persistent gap in pay between women and men.

"I think Rotary has given me access to young people, like Rotaractors, and they are ready to accept guidance because Rotary is a safe place to reach out and get advice," says Montanez.

Similarly, Jackie Huie, a member of the Rotary Club of St. Joseph & Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA, recognizes Rotary's mentoring power. In 2007, Huie's club created a program that matches high school juniors and seniors with a mentor in the field they'd like to enter. The program started with 40 students at one high school and has now expanded into schools across the area.

"I got a letter from a girl who came from a poor background, and through the program, she got a chance to meet with an attorney in town," says Huie, president of JohnsonRauhoff, a multimedia company that fosters creative thinking for artists. "It inspired her and gave her confidence to go to school and study law. She got accepted into four law schools and is on her way to becoming an attorney."

Besides the investment in young people's futures, mentoring brings clubs important community recognition. For example, Huie's club has 150 members, a large number for a club that doesn't hold membership drives, she says.

"Everyone in southwest Michigan knows about Rotary," says Huie. "We had a student who wanted to be a CEO for a large corporation. After we arranged for him to meet with the CEO of Whirlpool, his father was so impressed with the whole program that he joined Rotary."

Many of the program's early participants went on to form an Interact club, and there are now more than 200 Interact members at four area schools. Forty of them will travel to the Dominican Republic this summer to install water filters and take part in a medical mission.

"It's important for Rotary to make an investment in young people," says Huie. "My own daughter is in Interact because of my membership in Rotary. I think her world is broader, and she looks at the world differently. We all do, because of what we've learned through Rotary."

Read a blog post from Montanez

By Arnold R. Grahl
Rotary News
8-Mar-2016
View this article on Rotary.org

By JOHN MATUSZAK - HP Staff Writer
Sunday, July 26, 2015

ST. JOSEPH - Behind every successful professional is someone who helped them take their first steps up that ladder.

The St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club realized that universal truth seven years ago and launched a student mentor program that is now going global.

"Sometimes I think the difference between success and failure is passion. Sometimes I think it's having a focus. Sometimes I think it's hard work. And sometimes I think it's having someone helping you out," said Jackie Huie, past president of the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club and president of Johnson-Rauhoff marketing firm, who helped launch the Rotary Student Program.

The program started in 2008 as Huie and others saw that many young people did not have access to the experience and advice of the top people in various career fields. Huie had that chance from an early age, shadowing her father, Don Johnson, who started Johnson-Rauhoff 50 years ago.

"I love my job," Huie said. "I feel like the luckiest person in the world, and I would love it if everybody had that opportunity."

Since the Rotary Student Program started, hundreds of area high school students have had the opportunity to meet leaders in Southwest Michigan and around the country - from a former NFL players to a prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet.

With the support of the local community (including Johnson-Rauhoff) and Rotary International, Huie and her husband, Mike, have made presentations at global conferences in Lisbon, Portugal, and this year in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

So far, 60 countries have pledged to adopt the program, with more signing on all the time.

Mentoring mavens Student mentoring is a popular concept these days, but back when Huie first had the idea, it was not as common.

The Rotary Student Program consists of a one-hour "reverse interview" with the professional, in which the student asks questions about their field of expertise. They then report back to their home club, gaining experience in public speaking. "It's not about the business professional just showing up, it's not about a tour or even about shadowing. It's about having an honest conversation" about their career choice, Huie said.

One of the breakthrough partnerships was with Jeff Fettig, president and CEO of Whirlpool Corp.

St. Joseph High School student David Reimers wrote on his application for the Rotary Student Program that his dream job was to be CEO of Whirlpool.

"We all laughed," Huie said of their committee. "We called Mr. Fettig and said 'There's a kid who wants to be you. Would you be willing to sit down with him?' He chuckled and then said 'Sure, I'll sit down with him.'"

In a video testimonial, Reimers said Fettig gave him invaluable advice. He suggested that the young man first major in finance and accounting "since numbers are the language of business," and then get his MBA.

He also told Reimers "Don't worry about your next job. Work as hard as you can on your current job, and the next job will take care of itself."

The participation of Fettig, head of one of the largest companies in the world, encouraged others to take part, Huie said.

In his own testimonial, Fettig acknowledged the worldwide potential of the project. "It doesn't matter the language, it doesn't matter the culture, sharing your experience and letting people find out how they can succeed through your experiences can help anyone, really, in any country in the world."

The mentor relationship with Reimers continued, with Fettig visiting him at Michigan State University. All that advice must have stuck because Reimers is now working for Whirlpool.
"I don't know what I'd be doing today," without the Rotary Student Program, Reimers said.

Re-energizing Rotary

Reimers, now 22, is poised to become the youngest member of the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club.

His father, Randy Reimers, community president with Fifth Third Bank, was so impressed with the results that he joined Rotary, as well.

"Overnight David went from a kid to a man ... that is how huge of an impact Jeff Fettig had on our son," he said.

Recruiting new Rotarians boosts the organization's global missions of providing clean water to remote locations and eliminating polio, Huie said.

Traveling overseas tapped into a worldwide need for mentors.

The Huies first traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, to test the waters for their concept. The next year they went to Lisbon, and received an enthusiastic response.

"People were telling us 'We can't make the connections in our communities for our kids,'" Huie said.

Things only continued to grow during the Brazil trip, with nations such as Zambia, Uganda, Ghana and Italy among the latest converts.

The program has been featured on Rotary International's website.

With 1.2 million members worldwide, Rotary is the perfect vehicle to sustain such an effort, Huie said. And the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor club, one of the largest in the world with 150 members, has the connections to make it happen, she said.

Rotary Clubs interested in the mentor program are sent information with 11 steps for getting one off the ground. Huie said they have recently provided downloadable material to make it more accessible.

The project hasn't reached its peak, Huie said. "It's nowhere near where it's going to be."

Huie even sees this as a way to help underprivileged kids.

"For kids in poverty-stricken areas, if you have a goal, if you have a path, it's easier to pull yourself through, and if you have hope," said Huie, whose father is a self-made man and whose mother picked cotton as a child.

The continuing success of the Rotary Student Program emphasizes for Huie and the others involved the power of a dream.

Maria Kibler, a Rotarian and advisor to their Interact group for students, reminded her "Jackie, remember that day when we said this will go global? It did!"

To view the article, click here.

To listen click HERE

Launched in 2008 by the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA, the Rotary Student Program is a proven, successful mentoring initiative that directly links youth and communities with Rotary and the three pillars of Rotary International Strategic Priorities and Goals: 1) Support and Strengthen Clubs, 2) Focus and Increase Humanitarian Service, and 3) Enhance Public Image and Awareness. Aligning with the 5 Avenues of Service — Club Service, Vocational Service, Community Service, International Service, and New Generations Service — the program is being piloted by District 6360 and globally. Highly effective in attracting youth to Rotary through service, the program is being viewed as a viable catalyst for club revitalization, community relevance, and global membership growth. Rotary Clubs from around the world that have been exposed to the initiative have expressed interest in adopting it.
To view the article, click here.

Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2012
By H-P STAFF ST. JOSEPH

A service program developed by the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor aimed at helping area high school students reinforce their career choices, or rethink them, is featured in an article on the Rotary International Website.

Participants, chosen by their schools, are given a chance to explore their professional interests by spending time behind the scenes at area businesses and meeting with adult mentors who share their experiences and advise the students on how best to pursue their careers.

Since launching the program in 2008, Rotarians have matched more than 300 students with professionals including lawyers, doctors, a company CEO, broadcast journalists, police officers, and a professional football player, according to Jackie Huie. Huie is chairwoman of the program and president of the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor club.
To view the article, click here.

By Ryan Hyland
Rotary News - 5 October 2012

A vocational service program conducted by the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA, is helping junior and senior high school students develop careers by connecting them with mentors who are leaders in industry.

Participants are selected by their schools and given the opportunity to explore their professional interests with behind-the-scenes visits to area businesses. They also meet one-on-one with mentors, who share their experiences and advise the students on how best to pursue their dream careers.

Since the club launched the mentoring program in 2008, Rotarians have put more than 300 students in touch with professionals including lawyers, doctors, a Fortune 500 CEO, broadcast journalists, police officers, and a professional football player. Two Rotarians accompany each student who meets with a professional. The students are then required to report on their experiences at a meeting of the Rotary Club.

“This program leverages Rotary’s amazing network of professionals to help young people connect with their career interests,” says Jackie Huie, program chair and president of the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor club. “We have not had a vocation that we couldn’t find for a student.”

The experience gives teenagers a chance either to reinforce their career choices or to rethink them, says Huie.

Teri LaForest, a senior and a 2012 program participant, wanted to become a meteorologist. The club organized a meeting with a meteorologist at the local TV station. After the visit, LaForest concluded that that job might not be for her but that she still had a passion for environmental science.

Visit sheds light on career path

“It was really neat to be able to see the TV studio, an opportunity I would not have had without Rotary,” says LaForest. “Visiting the station actually made choosing a career easier, but tougher at the same time. I realized that I’m not very interested in the broadcast side of meteorology. The scientific side, however, I found very interesting. The experience got me thinking about possibly going into a field that combines engineering and environmental science.”

David Reimers, a second-year student at Michigan State University, met with Whirlpool Corporation CEO Jeff Fettig when he was a senior in high school. Reimers says that talking with Fettig confirmed his career choice, and he points to Whirlpool as the company he’d like to work for.

“I know for sure that business is the right field for me,” says Reimers. “In high school I was a bit naive thinking about the difficulty of actually becoming a CEO and the stress involved with the job. In college I have really tried to focus on the advice Mr. Fettig gave me, which was not to worry about your next job, just work as hard as you can at the job you have, and the rest will take care of itself. If I don’t quite make it to the top, I will be all right with that, as long as I have worked my hardest to get there. I now know that the only way to the top is from the bottom, and there are no shortcuts.”

Huie says the program’s success inspired the formation of the Interact Club of Saint Joseph-Benton Harbor in February. After just two weeks, the club membership grew to 60 students.

Huie says clubs from Scotland, New Zealand, India, Peru, and Japan have inquired about starting similar programs since she shared details about it with Rotarians at the 2012 RI Convention in Bangkok.

“This is a proven, successful mentoring initiative that directly links youth and communities with Rotary,” says Huie. “It’s attracting youth to Rotary and is a lasting catalyst for club revitalization, community relevance, and global membership growth.”

To view this article as posted on the Rotary International site, click here.

Rotary Club inaugurates new youth club that encompasses SJHS, BHHS, Lake Michigan Catholic, Michigan Lutheran and Countryside students

Story Credit: The Herald-Palladium
March 1, 2012

ST. JOSEPH - The Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor has something unique to its credit - a youth club with membership from five school districts.

The membership of most such Interact Clubs is from one school, said past district governor Don Frohm. Other than the club inaugurated on Wednesday night, "We don't have a single Interact Club that encompasses more than one school," Frohm told a sizable crowd around the Silver Beach Carousel.

The new club has more than 60 members and includes students from St. Joseph High School, Benton Harbor High School, Lake Michigan Catholic High School, Michigan Lutheran High School and Countryside Academy.

"The future of Rotary is right here," Frohm said, looking at the students. "The future of our country is standing in front of us."

Berrien Trial Court Judge Charles LaSata, president of the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, said Rotarians chose the five school districts in a "hands across the river, hands across the community" gesture.

"Because we have so many small municipalities in northern Berrien County, and the school districts are so close, the officers and directors of our club felt that it would be more appropriate to include all the schools in one Interact Club, and build relationships among the schools," LaSata said after the inauguration. "I'm very pleased with the results."

Club President Evan Hampton of St. Joseph High School in making introductions noted that club Director Jasmine Dortch, from Benton Harbor High School, was absent because she was playing in a district tournament basketball game. Hampton wished her luck.

"The kids, they just get along great," LaSata said later. "You heard the president from St. Joseph High School rooting for the officer from Benton Harbor High School playing in the districts this evening. I think the young people will build some really nice relationships and make friends in other schools."

What do the Interact Club members get out of it?

"The biggest thing for me is the community service and the networking, meeting all the Rotarians," Evan said after the meeting.

Other club officers include: vice president, Kayleigh Kibler, Lake Michigan Catholic; co-secretaries, Courtney Vorrath and Brandon Lucius, both of Michigan Lutheran High School; and director, Sean Carpenter, St. Joseph High School.

LaSata said the club is unique in another way - it was organized and chartered in less than a month - about a week and a half.

"No one had ever chartered a club in 12 days," LaSata said. That took some tall doing and a lot of help from the students, but they pulled it off, he said.

Interact is Rotary International's service club for youths 12-18 years old. The clubs normally undertake two service projects a year, one in their own communities and one internationally.

"I'm just amazed at how they've taken the ball the run with it," LaSata said after the inauguration. "And it's their club. We help them get started and got some thing set up for them, but they choose the direction."

Terry Allen of Lakeshore Rotary, district governor nominee, said the district has $10,000 in matching funds for money raised by district Interact Clubs for international projects. Rotary provides water filters for safe drinking water in countries that lack safe water.

Story Credit: The Herald-Palladium
February 19, 2010

St. Joseph, Michigan – As a business executive, Jackie Huie has the means to introduce young people to a career path. But she’s just one person, with one business. Luckily, she’s also a member of a local Rotary Club whose members are involved in numerous businesses.

“Paula Dawning (former Benton Harbor Area Schools superintendent) was the inspiration behind this. It was her idea to line up several students with several business people,” said Huie, president of Johnson Rauhoff, a communications and marketing firm headquartered in St. Joseph.

Her conversation with Dawning led to creation of the Student Rotary Program, operated by the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor. The program, developed by Huie with the support of Rotary Club President Art Fenrick and area educators, matches teens from St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Lake Michigan Catholic, and Michigan Lutheran high schools with Rotary Club members who can introduce them to various career tracks. The program debuted with a few students last year and this year is touching dozens.

“This is something I've always wanted to do,” said Amber Thomas, a senior at Benton Harbor High School, while exploring the inner workings of the Berrien County Sheriff's Department. She wants a career in either forensics or law. She and Marcus Bledsoe, a senior at Lake Michigan Catholic High School, recently spent the afternoon with Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey, exploring possible careers in law enforcement and forensics.

Brittney Gathing, a senior at Benton Harbor High School, participated in the tour, along with a Herald-Palladium photographer and reporter. Gathing is interested in a journalism career.

“When I first heard about this program, I went to a newspaper. I'd never interacted with anyone in that field. I'm excited about the different aspects of journalism. Next week I'm going to a TV station,” she said.

Bailey led the students on a tour of the jail, and Sgt. Mike Danneffel showed them the workings of the forensics lab. Thomas had a lot of questions, including whether Danneffel’s job is stressful, how much money he makes, and whether the job is “as exciting as you see on TV.”

Good forensic evidence helps police when they are called to testify in court, Bailey told the students. He talked about the importance of a sound education in addition to specific training in forensics.

“You're young. You want to do this right now. Get that four-year degree first. It'll pay off big time in the future,” Bailey advised the teens.

The sheriff explained to the students that when police officers pursue promotions, bachelor's and master's degrees give them extra points over other job candidates. Bledsoe said he has wanted to become a policeman since he was a freshman and participated in the Michigan Youth Leadership Academy run by the state police.

Ashley Moyer, a St. Joseph High School senior, recently shadowed a judge and lawyer at the Berrien County Courthouse. Other students have visited radio stations, accounting firms, medical facilities, and photography studios.

“The idea is to expose them to the business community,” Huie said. “I'm amazed at the number of students graduating in marketing who have never set foot in a marketing business, and the people I hire who realize it's not what they want to be doing. This is about exposing them early to the world they think they're interested in.”

Students are hosted at various businesses by senior-level managers, giving the teens the chance to either reinforce or rethink their chosen careers. After navigating an application process, students selected for the program have lunch with a Rotarian, then visit the executive's place of business. The students later report back to the Rotary Club about their experiences. Some of the Rotarians invite students back for more visits to their workplaces.

Bailey said he would be inviting his group back because he wanted to show them more facets of the sheriff’s department.

“Just about any career interest an area student might have can be found right here in Berrien County. There's no better collective group than Rotarians to pull together students and businesses,” Huie said.

The goal of the Rotary Club of St. Joseph-Benton Harbor is to put about 50 students a year through the program. Huie said she plans to share the program with Rotary International to try to make it an international program.

By KEVIN ALLEN
H-P Business Writer – March 20, 2009

St. Joseph — Michigan's economic pains have several causes, but “brain drain” is one of the most insidious.

Thousands of young people who grew up in Michigan are taking their talents and leaving the state for jobs in other places. But the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club is chipping in to stem the tide by introducing high school juniors and seniors to career opportunities in the Twin Cities area.

Jackie Huie, president of the St. Joseph advertising agency JohnsonRauhoff and chairwoman of Rotary’s Student Host Program, said those students might not have had much exposure to the career fields that interest them, they might be unsure of their options, or they might need some inspiration.

“We're not all teachers, counselors, or collegiate specialists, but we are specialists in our fields of business,” Huie said.

The Student Host Program will officially launch in the fall, but 15 students are participating in a pilot program this spring.

“It's amazing how willing everybody is to help," Huie said. "It's neat how these businesses are opening up their doors to these kids.”

Students in the program attend a Rotary luncheon, spend the afternoon touring an area business, and report back to club members at their next meeting.

Patrick Glowacki, a senior at Lake Michigan Catholic High School, spoke Monday about his experience at Abonmarche, an engineering and design firm based in Benton Harbor. Glowacki is planning to study engineering at the University of Michigan. He said it was interesting to see the large projects Abonmarche is working on in the area, such as the Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course at Harbor Shores and the Silver Beach development below the bluff in St. Joseph. “It's good to know there's a lot of opportunity, even in St. Joe,” he said.

Erin Etter, a senior at St. Joseph High School, is interested in fashion merchandising, so she spent Monday afternoon at DK Boutique in downtown St. Joseph. “Even though it was just in a small town, it gave me insight into what the fashion world is like,” she said.

Etter, who will attend Hope College in the fall, said she will probably eventually end up back in St. Joseph, but would like to experience life in a big city such as Chicago or New York.

Another St. Joseph senior, Kyle Denny, met with Chris Ball, general manager of sales for Whirlpool Corp., at the appliance maker's world headquarters in Benton Township.

Denny, who will attend Michigan State University in the fall, said he is planning to pursue a math-related career like actuarial science or engineering. He said Ball gave him a memorable piece of advice: “Sometimes the people that learn the most are the people that go outside their comfort zone.”

Celia Zhang, another senior at St. Joseph, toured Whirlpool's Benton Harbor manufacturing plant with Rotary member J.C. Anderson, who retired as Whirlpool's senior vice president of manufacturing operations in 2007. She said learning about how Whirlpool coordinates activities between its different sites made her more interested in management.

“It was a really great experience. I would love it if more people were able to do it,” Zhang said. “It wasn't really time-consuming, but I feel like I have a much better grasp of the workforce.”