Club invites teens to decorate floats

Camarillo Rotary Club member Ronda Werner-Herrschaft will help select four students to work on the Rotary float for the 2007 Rose Parade in Pasadena. There are 45 students currently visiting Southern California through the Rotary International Youth Exchange Organization.

"It's going to be a tough selection process," said WernerHerrschaft. "This is going to be a great opportunity to make people knowledgeable about the important work Rotary is doing to promote good relations among students worldwide."

Werner-Herrschaft was one of the first women to join Rotary

when it ended its menonly membership policy in 1988. Five years later she became Camarillo's first female Rotary president.

She later became involved with the Rotary International Youth Exchange Organization and has been hosting and sponsoring students ever since. In addition to the local exchanges, she serves on the Rotary International Finding's Committee and has been appointed a committee cochair for the 2008 Rotary International Convention planned in Los Angeles.

During the last five years, Werner-Herrschaft has served the local Rotary District, encompassing more than 70 separate clubs reaching from Morro Bay to Simi Valley and out to Bakersfield, as the Youth Exchange officer. Rather than have one host family totally responsible for the student's entire exchange experience, she likes to move the students from one family to another in four- or six-week segments, she said.

"This gives the student a number of different experiences while they are here and also minimizes the obligations on any one host family," she said.

Host families are always needed and are encouraged to contact the Camarillo Rotary Club for further details. Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. For more information on Ro

tary, call Camarillo Rotary president Dave Drumright at (800) 920-4678.