Grab your coffee or tea and the breakfast of your choice and join us this Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. on Zoom to hear Francesca, our Rotary Youth Exchange student this year speak about her Rotary Youth Exchange experience. You can join the Zoom meeting at https://zoom.us/j/99732258910 or if you have the Zoom app on your phone or computer, you can go there and type in the meeting ID: 997 3225 8910. You can also join by one tap mobile at +13126266799,,99732258910# US (Chicago) or +16465588656,,99732258910# US (New York).

A few weeks ago, Francesca boarded a plane to head home to Italy - ending her Rotary Youth Exchange experience here a little early because of the coronavirus. She has completed her quarantine and is with her family at home.

Here's a quick reminder of Francesca's background - in Francesca's words:

I was born in Fabriano, a small town near Ancona, my actual city, on December 6, 2002. My city is in the middle of Italy and close to the ocean and it’s the main one in my region: Le Marche. My home is in a very small town near Ancona called Agugliano. It has just 4000 inhabitants but our gelato is the best one in Italy!

There I attend a scientific high school and I really like it because my favourite subjects are Math and Physics.

In my family we are five: my mom Catia and my dad Luca, my older sister Chiara and my little sister Beatrice. Last year Chiara went on exchange in Canada through Rotary. She was the one who introduced me in this program. Last year we hosted two girls: Francis, from Canada, and Josie, from Taiwan. It is also because of them if I’m here now as they showed me all the beauty of this program.

I’ve practised synchronized swimming for seven years now and this year I will join the swim team of Dunwoody High School. I played the flute for nine years and I love music in general. I have been in the scout group of my town since I was seven. There I met a lot of wonderful people and learnt lots of things.

As I already said, my town is close to the beach so during the summer I go to the sea almost everyday with my friends and I love it. I also love hiking and taking pictures of the landscape. One of my favourite things to do when the weather is nice is to stay in my terrace reading a book while the sunset colors the sky.

My friend are an essential part of my life. For this reason I was afraid it would have been hard to make friends here, but as soon as I arrived I realized that I had nothing to fear. My host sisters helped me a lot since the first days and I’m really lucky that they are in my same school. Thank to them, I already have a lot of good friends to talk to or to hang out with.

Here I’m a junior in Dunwoody High School. I like my schedule as I can study Math and Physics but also try new subjects like art or US History that I’ve never studied before. Everyone in the school is friendly and nice, including the teacher. DHS offers a lot of different clubs to join and I’m in DECA, Interact, Math Team and SGA.

I love travelling, as you can imagine. I’m going to Disneyworld in December thank to Rotary and I’m going to Hawaii in April in a trip organized by Rotary too.

I’m so glad to have the opportunity of being here this year and I’ll never be grateful enough to the Dunwoody Rotary Club who made this possible. I want to do all that I can to get the best out of this time and to leave a part of me to this place and its people too.