About RYLA
RYLA’s Purpose: to challenge the ideals of young people from the age of 15 to 18 years. Selected by your local Rotary Club in District 6450 to receive the award, young people are entitled to attend a three day seminar held at George Williams Campus of Aurora University in Williams Bay, WI aimed at developing further their personal and leadership skills.
The Cost: Investment for a RYLA seminar is kept to a minimum because the guest speakers volunteer their time. Seminars of this quality would normally cost many thousands of dollars to attend but the cost of RYLA is kept down to only $275 per awardee. Usually all food, accommodation and seminar costs are paid for by the sponsoring Rotary Club but occasionally, a Rotary club may ask an awardee to contribute to the cost to enable that club to sponsor multiple awardees and remain within their budget. Talk with your local Rotary Club or your District RYLA committee about this. Any personal expenses are to be covered by the awardee, but the real cost to you is your time and participation.
Who Is Eligible: Young people, male and female, between the ages of 15 and 18 years are eligible to be nominated for RYLA. We prefer that these young adults already have exhibited strong personal or leadership qualities or at least the potential to become leaders in school clubs, community activities or in an early work situation.
How to Apply: The selection process is conducted by your local Rotary Club and involves submitting an application form (available directly from the club or from your District’s RYLA committee). You can also download the application from this website.
What is Rotary?
Rotary is an international service organization open to successful and motivated men and women in communities everywhere there is a local club. Rotary has achieved many successes in past years and continues to grow stronger.
“Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. There are approximately 1.2 million Rotarians, members of more than 29,000 Rotary clubs in 160 countries.“
Communities that have local Rotary Clubs can be easily recognized. When you enter the community, you should be able to see the familiar Rotary logo.
Rotary International Mission Statement
The Mission of Rotary International is to assist and guide Rotarians and Rotary Clubs to accomplish the Object of Rotary to ensure Rotary’s continuing relevance and to help build a better world, emphasizing service activities by individuals and groups that enhance the quality of life and human dignity, creating greater understanding among all people to advance the search for peace in the world.
The Object of Rotary
The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
- First: The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
- Second: High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of all useful occupations; and the dignifying by each Rotarian of his occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
- Third: The application of the ideal of service by every Rotarian to his personal, business and community life;
- Fourth: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business professional people united in the ideal of service.
To learn more about Rotary International, visit their website at http://www.rotary.org or contact your local Rotary Club. Rotary District 6450 has their own website.