The Interact club is one of the most well-respected and longest running clubs on campus and is dedicated to serving people not only throughout the community, but throughout the world as well.

“A friend introduced me to this club,” sophomore Blythe Nishi said. “I love helping the community. We have a lot of unfortunate people and I love giving back.”

Associated with Rotary International, an international service organization, activities the club participates in include a yearly event at Raley Field called Winter

Wonderland when club members help feed the needy and create fun activities for the children to do.

Last fall, the club once again participated in the pinkies for polio project wherein an individual donates $1 to help eliminate polio in those countries still plagued by the crippling disease and, in exchange, get to have their pinkies painted purple.

Senior Victor Lam is the president of the Interact club.

“Interact accepts any and all who enjoy to find meaning in a meaningless life,” Lam said.

The club not only gets to know each other through their community service, but they also spend time bonding with and getting to know one another.

“I love being a part of Interact,” senior Karina Bodemeijer said. “My favorite memory was definitely the club’s bonding party at Wenelli’s where we played ice breaker games the whole time, and then we got to deliver the painted pumpkins and then decorate outside for the Halloween fair for the kids there.”

Junior Divya Alla observed that her work in the club not only helps those in need now, but will help her in the future.

“It helps on college applications and in communities,” Alla said. “We did a troop drive in Afghanistan and it was really helpful to have others loving what you do. I love to give back to the homeless and people in need.”

Alla hopes to see more people join the club.

“I would recommend people join this club,” she said. “It’s not as stressful and you don’t get charged to be in this club. We actually get stuff done in this club and it’s really student active.”

The people in the club face with real life disasters that they can help with. It makes everyone involved feel happy and love doing what they do. When seeing a smile from the people they helped, it makes them feel like they did a really good deed. It tells the people that are being helped that there are people out there that care, and helps them realize that they can do the smallest of things, but it will be the biggest of things to them.

It teaches people not only that giving back to the community is worthwhile, but also leadership and being in situations that they never thought they would be in.

The club helps the school with the elections, and they also have students do speeches to help them help themselves.

“Interact engages students to do little things for the community, giving you autonomy to choose how much effort you want to put in, so it can help people who really want to make a difference but have limited time,” senior Kyra Sanborn said.

“We not only interact with our community, but we interact with the community internationally,” Alla added.

The Interact club meets Mondays at lunch in Jolynn Mason’s room, A1.