OCEAN CITY, Md. - High school students from Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland met at the Carousel Hotel for the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards conference from February 17th through February 19th. The annual event is known as "RYLA."
Friday night RYLA participants packed 10,000 meals to be sent to schools overseas and people in disadvantaged areas.
WRDE'S Mallory Metzner gave a presentation about the road to her career on Saturday. She answered questions the students had about what they need to do to prepare for their own futures.
During the weekend RYLA paricipants are tasked with a group activity to develop and present a project. That includes everything from cost, who will buy it, and even making a project flag. The groups present their projects to one another.
Another project involves designing a contraption to keep an egg from cracking when it is dropped from the hotel balconies.
"We're taking kids that are we believe natural leaders anyway and helping to develop them, so when they go back to their high schools they can go back with a little bit of an idea of how service works and how service projects work and what the value of them is," says Rehoboth Beach Sunrise Rotary Secretay Gail Dejmal.
The student delegates that attend RYLA are nominated by their rotary clubs.