Prior Lake Rotary Donation

At the Prior Lake Rotary meeting on Wednesday, April 6th, Prior Lake High School Interact Club president, Megan Hofslien, accepted a check for the club's volunteer work at the Mardi Gras Gala in February. This check will be used toward Interact Club's final project of the year of raising awareness for homelessness. 

Pictured from left to right: Susan Perez, Megan Hofslien, and Bill Schult

Thank you Prior Lake Rotary for this generous donation! Interact Club truly enjoyed volunteering at the Mardi Gras Gala!

New Member Recognition 2016

During the morning meeting on Thursday, March 10th, new Prior Lake Interact Club members were recognized and inducted. New members for the 2015-2016 school year are Aleeky Hernandez, Marco van Heteren-Freeze, Connor Hofslien, Milena Koops, Christina Laridaen, Alyssa Ploof, Kalli Ploof, Marisa Popple, and Megan Zentner. 

Pictured from left to right: Alyssa Ploof, Kalli Ploof, Milena Koops, Connor Hofslien, and Susan Perez

Prior Lake Interact Club is beyond grateful for all the new members! The year has been amazing so far, and we are all looking forward to finishing the year off strongly.

Cards for Hospitalized Kids

At the morning member meeting on Thursday, February 19th, Interact members spent time making cards for hospitalized children. The cards incorporated motivational encouragement, colorful drawings, and demonstrated the admiration all these children deserve. Special thank you to the organization, Cards for Hospitalized Kids, for providing an opportunity to provide hope and joy to brave, commendable children.

Sew-A-Thon

On Wednesday, February 10th, Interact members met with Judy Johnson to participate in a Sew-A-Thon. Judy Johnson holds this event to sew feminine hygiene products for women of poverty-stricken countries. Many young girls in these countries are unable to attend school and work during their menstrual cycle. Judy strives to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy and allow these young girls to go to school by creating reusable feminine hygiene kits. Each kit includes a drawstring bag, plastic ziplock bags for storage and cleaning, a bar of soap, eight washable pads, two shields to hold the pads, and panties.

Interact members helped with stringing bags, sewing patterns, and cutting fabric. This was a very eye-opening experience for all the members. As Judy said, "This is a human issue, not just a woman's issue." We are all very grateful for the chance to help a wonderful cause. Thank you Judy for sharing this amazing opportunity. 

Mardi Gras Gala 2016

Interact Club had the opportunity to volunteer at Prior Lake Rotary's 2016 Mardi Gras Gala on Saturday, February 6th. Members helped out with registration, silent auction, and the cork pull. It was a very fun night filled with laughter and memories! 

Thank you Prior Lake Rotary for a wonderful time!

Build-A-House

Interact Club's December project was self-named "Build-A-House." For this event, guests could build a gingerbread house for $7 with all supplies and ingredients provided. All the proceeds were donated to Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity. To promote the event, informative posters were made and posted in the high school, flyers were emailed to the elementary schools within the community, social media was utilized, and a news brief was published in the Prior Lake American.

This was the flyer shared with the elementary schools in the community.

On Monday, December 21st, Interact members arrived to the high school cafeteria 45 minutes before the event to set up decorations and organize the ingredients. Special thank you to Lunds & Byerlys in Prior Lake for donating some of the ingredients and supplies for the gingerbread houses.

Guests began arriving at 5 P.M. and creativity commenced! Guests who created a gingerbread house were eligible to win a prize. The three contest categories were most creative design, most colorful decorations, and most holiday spirit house. Respectively, the prizes for each category were a gift card to Caribou Coffee, a gift card to Eileen's Colossal Cookies, and a gift card to Target.

Thank you to all the students, families, and members of the community who came to the event to support a wonderful cause! It was a very fun night to celebrate holiday festivities!

R.O.C.K. Food Packing

R.O.C.K. is a local organization that stands for Reaching Our Community's Kids. This organization packs food for elementary students, who are food insecure, to take home over weekends. To be food insecure means to not know when or where the next meal will be. According to R.O.C.K.'s website, there are currently over 500 elementary students in the Prior Lake-Savage school district who are food insecure.

After school on Thursday, November 9th, Interact members gathered at the Holy Trinity Church in Prior Lake to help pack food. With the help of 11 members, advisor Mrs. Aikey, and Rotary mentor Susan Perez, we were able to pack enough food for the students of the elementary schools within 30 minutes!

This experience brought awareness to the notion of food insecurity within our community. We are very thankful for the opportunity to help students in need and we are happy to help our community in as many ways as possible.