It is wonderful to see when a Rotary Youth Exchange student gets involved in service projects on both ends of their exchange - the sponsoring club and the hosting club. This past year our Marblehead Rotary Club hosted Marisol, a youth exchange student from Thailand. Marisol is not just a great student, but also a very talented artist and produced stunning watercolor paintings and other works during her exchange year. She then decided to sell some of those works to raise money for a career-training project for mental-health patients that her sponsoring club in Thailand, the Nong-khae Rotary Club, is presently working on.Marisol was able to raise a total of $700 from friends, family, and from the members of the Marblehead Rotary Club, and we transferred those funds to the Nong-khae Rotary Club at the end of her youth exchange year.
We sent the money via wire transfer and Marisol was able to present a check to the Nong-khae Rotary Club in August. She shared a few photos of the presentation and also wrote the following note:
"Meeting at the Rotary Nong-khea club, it was a great time to offer money that I made from selling my artwork to support career-training for patients with mental illnesses. The total amount of money is $700 or 22,740 bath. It will be used for buying essentials and donating to the patient care center in Saraburi.
We greatly appreciate the assistance from the Marblehead Rotary club and Alexander Falk, the president of the Rotary Club of Marblehead. Without your help, this project would never be done, and my art skill would never be proved.
Everybody in the club, included my friends in MHS, and my hosts families, The Larkin, The Segil, and The Fein that never ignored and overlooked my determination. This is an amazing first step of our relationship between Nong-khea Rotary Club and Marblehead Rotary Club. I will keep updating the statement of this project later on."