Thursday, January 31, 2008
Rotary's free trips can be a tough sell
Shanna Flowers
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Ernest Bentley is a Christiansburg businessman with a great story to share.
But often he can't get anyone to listen. He's got a tantalizing offer that should be hard to refuse, but many do.
What Bentley is selling doesn't cost anything, but it pays off in huge returns of personal enrichment, enlightenment and a sense of adventure.
Bentley is a Rotary Club member. As chairman of Western Virginia's Rotary Group Study Exchange, he's always looking for people to send on trips abroad. These are monthlong excursions to such places as Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Japan, the Bahamas, New Zealand ... and the list goes on.
Rotary sponsors the trips -- read, they're free.
Now is anybody listening?
The opportunity is phenomenal. It's essentially a field trip for adults. But Bentley gets few takers. So far, he has no applicants for a trip this fall to South Africa and one early next year to India.
"What we run into each year, we beat the bushes," said the printer who served in the Peace Corps 40 years ago. He and other Rotarians approach people who express an interest, but beg off until "next year."
"The next year, they've disappeared."
Bentley said that probably has to do with the age requirement -- 25 to 40. That's when many people are immersed in their careers, have family obligations -- spouses and children -- and can't break away for four or five weeks.
Applicants must be professionally employed. That means everyone from doctors to lawyers to farmers and small-business owners settled in their careers.
When participants arrive in the host country, they shadow someone with a similar career to learn how the job is performed in another country and culture.
Also, during the exchange, participants visit businesses, government offices and tour historical and cultural sites. They attend two or three Rotary meetings and give presentations about Western Virginia. They stay with different Rotarian host families, living about a week with each.
The program allows participants "to learn about the host country's politics, economics and society; and to foster better understanding between people of different parts of the world," Bentley wrote to me in an e-mail.
Right after 9/11, the question of the day was "Why do they hate us so much?" Maybe because we don't bother to get know or don't feel comfortable knowing others outside of our country and culture. I'm as guilty as anyone.
"We've always felt it's been an important program to have," said Bentley, who has been on the Rotary district's exchange committee for 10 years. This is his first as chairman. "So many people are reluctant to pick up and travel."
Mentally, I already had packed my bags for a fall excursion, in September to South Africa. Then the managing editor, also a Rotarian, said I couldn't go because it would be a conflict of interest. Then, too, there's that age thing.
Once or twice a year, the Rotary district -- which extends from Winchester to Bristol, but does not include Lynchburg and Charlottesville -- sends small teams out of the country.
The five-member teams are headed by a Rotarian. The four others are members of the public. Interested travelers have to apply and undergo an interview.
Ideally, Bentley said, he would like to get 16 to 18 applicants for each trip. He would not say how many he gets but hinted it's not close to that. In the decade he's been involved in the program, Bentley said, only two blacks have participated. A third will participate this year. He said he wants to attract more minorities.
The exchange program began 40 years ago when a Rotary Club in New Zealand did an exchange with another country. The practice caught on and is now duplicated throughout the international organization of 1.2 million members.
The team member picks up individual costs such as a passport and immunizations. Rotary International pays for the plane ticket, which is not inexpensive.
Round-trip airline tickets from Roanoke to Johannesburg, South Africa, range from $1,400 to $4,300. Once on the ground, the team members need money only for souvenirs or other incidentals they wish to buy.
The host family pays for all of the team members' food, transportation, admission fees and any other program-related costs.
Still, the lure of the opportunity didn't capture Michelle Harris' interest until last fall. For about five years, a Rotarian approached Harris. Each time, the Winchester registered nurse said no.
Like Bentley often hears, the timing wasn't good for Harris.
"I was in my early 30s," said the 38-year-old single mother. "I was working. I was focused on that. I was raising my son, who was much younger at the time."
But last fall, Harris decided to apply. She will be on a team going to Brazil in April. To get there, she has had to learn Portuguese and meet regularly with team members to work on presentations.
"We have people coming to us of all different cultures," said Harris, a nurse at an assisted living and nursing center. "I don't want to be ignorant as to the cultures.
"Truly it is an opportunity. Even if it wasn't free, I'd probably scrimp and scrape to go."
