Truckee’s Rotary club level speech contest was held on Monday, March 3 at the Sierra Sotheby office space, giving local youth a chance to shine. Youth are an incredibly large portion of the community. Schools, churches, and afternoon programs all team with people learning and growing but who are not yet adults. In so many ways, the Truckee community has avenues to support and encourage the youth to be educated and knowledgeable moving forward.
Spring 2025 marks another year that the District Rotary is putting together speech contests. Students in our district have the opportunity to showcase their brilliance in a structured and competitive setting, and get to participate in a local to district wide contest.
The Rotary is an international organization of local volunteers dedicated to helping their individual communities. According to their website, they boast over 1.2 million members worldwide. The organization is made up of many clubs who host individual events to better their community.
Rotary International takes on everything from fighting diseases to encouraging education, which is right where this district’s speech contest fits in. Speeches are a mix of public speaking skills and the chance to showcase the rigorous academia of local students. According to UNR, “practicing a speech will boost your confidence as a speaker and ease potential anxiety.” Social situations and future job opportunities can rely on a skill like this.
The seven supported Rotary areas are:
- Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution
- Disease Prevention and Treatment
- Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
- Maternal and Child Health
- Basic Education and Literacy
- Community Economic Development
- Environment
The theme for this year’s speeches is, “How have you or how will you ‘Work YOUR Magic’ in your own community in one or more of the seven areas that Rotary supports?” Contestants were to make a five to seven minute speech responding to the prompt.
This contest gives a chance for local youth, grades nine through twelve, to not only have a time to showcase their reach in the community but also gives an amazing opportunity to showcase their talents. Participating could also possibly be a good addition to college applications. The combination of the ability to give a speech in a difficult situation as well as writing the speech itself make the prizes worth giving. The big district finale will be in May, 2025, when the winners will take home their cash prizes, $1,000 going home with first place.
At the local contest on Monday, friends and family milled around at 4 p.m. before the contest started, sharing stories and laughter that spilled into the hall. Rotary Sunshine Club member Brent Ferrera quieted the room down, reminding the audience to quiet their phones and instructing the speakers to remain anonymous to the judges as to avoid bias.
Nerves from the four speakers were high in the room, but each presented eloquently and efficiently, highlighting their community ‘magic.’ Ciaran Phillips, Addison Schaller, Alexa Avila Cruz, and Randy Garcia were the speakers at the club contest. Each speech had a nod to education as well as childhood, and the topics were perfectly relevant to the theme. In between each presentation, the room left a pause for the judges to collect themselves, and respect was at an admirable high. The Truckee Club Level local winner was Addison Schaller, accepting her award and an advance to the next round with smiles and humility.
As the room cleared out, nerves died down, and quiet chatter picked back up. Families and speakers moved on with their day, to continue impacting the lives of people in the community with their magic. When asked why the Rotary puts on this event, Ferrera made it incredibly clear, “Youth is one of our focuses,” and Truckee can feel that reverberate through the community by all the Rotary does for it.
