Environmental Stewardship Film | RYLA District 6250
The year the theme was the earth
RYLA 2024 had a spine the other years didn't. Rotary had made the environment a new area of focus, and the camp built the whole weekend around it. Students planted pollinator gardens and pulled invasive species out of the woods. Actual work, actual dirt. That gave us something to build toward instead of hunting for a thread in the footage afterward. We wrote and directed into the arc, shot the service projects as they happened, and used drone to keep the woods and the water in frame so stewardship never stayed abstract. It ends at Sunset Rock. Kids sitting quiet at the end of a long weekend, thinking about what they're taking home. We shot it and then mostly stayed out of it. Some moments don't need help.
Who is
RYLA 6250 - Rotary
RYLA is Rotary's leadership training program for young people. District 6250 brings sophomores to Camp Upham Woods in Wisconsin Dells for a weekend built around Rotary and Interact, service work, and growing as leaders. Participants regularly go home and start Interact clubs at their own schools.
A recap that recruits
The film works as a record of the weekend and as the pitch for the next one, which is what RYLA needs most, since the program is close to impossible to explain to a sophomore who hasn't been. Anchoring it in the service projects also gave Rotary something concrete to show for the environmental focus.
