The Arvada Sunrise Rotary Club sponsors spots at RYLA [Rotary Youth Leadership Award] and Young RYLA each year. These are life-changing leadership training programs for young men and women where leadership skills and principles are learned, developed and enhanced in an atmosphere of trust and respect.
There are several past participants of this program that stated their experience was life-changing and made them more aware of their capabilities. It is common to see a student become emotional when talking about their experience with RYLA. For many students, this is their first exposure to Rotary and what we, as Rotarians, can accomplish. The projects and exercises in this five-day camp are designed to get the students to think differently about certain situations and develop their own solutions with fellow students they may have not met before attending the camp. Many students worldwide, who have attended RYLA, have continued on to become members of an Interact, Rotaract, and eventually a Rotary club.