History: When it began in 2014...

HISTORY: In November 28th 2014, 30 students in grades 9-12 from School District 42 were taken that year to a local ranch in Mission BC for the Ridge Meadows Youth Impact Summit first ever inaugural event. The students engaged in a variety of leadership activities, heard from professional speakers, and given the chance to network with other participants and leaders in their communities for 3 days. The Ridge Meadows Youth Impact Summit was funded by the Rotary Club of Haney with help from the Founder's Cup Foundation in 2014. The Youth Impact Society was founded by Keesha Rosario of the Rotary Club of Haney and Co-Chaired by Jen Baillie a leader of youth in the community with additional adult and youth volunteers who have been impacted or participated in Rotary Youth programs. The program covers the cost of food, accommodation, supplies, transportation and the registration cost for the summit.

The Ridge Meadows Youth Impact Summit all started with the Founder"s Cup Charity Foundation deciding to allocate funds for the intention of making the biggest difference to the largest group of youth in the two communities of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows possible. RMYIS's Chair Keesha Rosario, being a local Rotarian spent years watching the difference that the Rotary International program "Rotary Youth Leadership Awards" commonly referred to as RYLA made on young adults. She then decided to propose that this large event could be done on a smaller more community based scale and make a very large IMPACT in the local area. It was with that propasal that the Ridge Meadows Youth Impact Summit was born.

Planning for the Impact summit took approximately one year of work volunteered by the 13 members of the Planning Committee. Planning for the next RMYIS has begun, do you want to get involved ?

Participants of the Ridge Meadows Youth Impact Summit were grouped with a Facilitator(s). These Facilitators are past participants of other Rotary Youth programs that are willing to volunteer their time for the summit and help guide the participants through the weekend. They were trained and lead by our team of Head Facilitators Jordan Yeo and Chantal Broughton (Jorchan). Chantal and Jordan acted as hosts for the weekend ensuring that everything followed their precise schedule, while supporitng our facilitators.