Mike Liebman
At our regular club meeting on March 12, 2026, Mike Liebman provided us with an inspiring description of RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) and Young RYLA. Mike is a co-chair of one of this year’s young RYLA conferences.
RYLA provides leadership conferences for youth. Applicants must apply and be selected. Young RYLA conferences are for middle school children between the 7th and 8th grades. RYLA conferences are for high school age children. The conferences are about a week long. They are run by junior counselors who tend to be college freshman or sophomores for RYLA conferences and high school juniors or seniors for young RYLA conferences. Experience has taught that RYLA conferees are more tuned in to people slightly older than them than to much older adults. Senior counselors, who are adults, many of them Rotarians, get paired with junior counselors. The senior counselors support the junior counselors, often serving as an additional eyes and hands. The junior counselors run the conferences. All counselors (junior and senior) receive training and are paired with mentors or mentees based on their relative experience levels as counselors.
The conferences develop leadership skills through gamified experiences. For example, one such experience, run in young RYLA conferences, is called the “Circle of Support”. 144 conferees get divided into teams of 12. The entire group must form a circle by putting their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Bear in mind that these are middle school children who are not generally comfortable touching strangers. The teams must communicate among themselves, work together and trust one another. If one fails, they all fail. The exercise teaches the metaphor of supporting others while being supported. Another experience called the “Laser Walk” requires that entire teams navigate a course full of holes in the ground, and ropes or bungy chords tied between the trees providing obstacles above the holes. The goal is to complete the course by putting feet in the holes without touching any of the ropes or bungy chords above the holes. This exercise really tests and teaches integrity, at both the individual and group levels. If someone touches a rope or bungy chord, the entire team must start the course over again. The counselors pretend they are not really paying attention. When someone touches a rope or bungy chord and no one appears to notice, the test is, will the individual admit the failure and require their team to start over again. If a team member observes the failure and the failing team member says nothing, will the observing team member report the failure, requiring the entire team to start over again or will the observing team member stay quiet, covering up the failure? The exercise does not test the ability to complete the task. It tests integrity when the success or failure of the entire group is at stake. A RYLA or youth RYLA conference consists of numerous activities like these. The experiences emphasize adherence to the 4-way test. After each activity, participants debrief. They must answer questions such as why did this happen, how did I contribute or fail to contribute and what can I learn from this experience.
Initially, RYLA programs were only for boys of high school age. The first Rotary youth programs began in Australia in 1960. Rotary International began chartering youth programs in 1971. Rocky Mountain RYLA began in the 1980s. Young RYLA programs began in Canada in the 1990s and in the Rocky Mountain region in the 2000s. In total, some 17,000 children have completed RYLA and youth RYLA programs.
The programs are free to participating conferees. Everyone who staffs RYLA and youth RYLA conferences are volunteers, except for the nurses, who are paid. Currently, Rocky Mountain RYLA and youth RYLA programs take place at the YMCA facility in Estes Park. The cost of the facility has increased from about $450 per conferee in 2019 to about $800 per conferee more recently. In order for Rocky Mountain RYLA, a 501c3, to break even, the Estates Park facility must get filled. Currently, Rocky Mountain RYLA is losing about $50,000 per year with a total annual budget of about $400,000.
There are 4 ways Rotarians can contribute to RYLA and youth RYLA:
Help fund the program via club grants.
Select worthy students for participation.
Provide Senior Counselors.
Individual Donations.
