It is our pleasure once again to roll out the welcome mat fo rour local middle schools and invite students to the annual Holland/Zeeland Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century spring conference.
This year’s conference will be our 25th annual event. And, after pandemic shutdowns and seeking input from school counselors, we continue to improve parts of the program to reduce the work required of your staff for student selection!
This year — 2026 — we have obtained a grant from our Rotary District to enable us to return to a three-day event (two overnights in the dorm), increase the number of student participants, and implement some changes to the selection and registration process.
Welcome to our way of reaching out to you through this website: Leadersforthe21stcentury.org.
This information and registration website should provide you with all of what you may already know as educators about the Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century program. This also provides an intro about the program for Middle School counselors and teachers to provide an ongoing resource for leadership and development during the course of the school year.
Early each year, we contact middle school counselors with Leader Nomination cards for them to hand out to selected students. This card not only provides a full description of the program, but also provides a Parent-directed info side complete with QR code that will allow students and parents to register for this annual Leadership Conference. This Nomination card is designed to streamline the registration process and take some of the demand for student selection and registration off of the participating schools staff.
We are reserving several slots this year for all our area incoming seventh and eighth graders.
We are hoping you and/or your middle school teachers will join us at least for some portion of the event on the Hope College campus June 10-12, 2926. All of our counselors are former 21st Century Leaders who have been through this program, understand the impact it made on them, and keep coming back. They have experienced the value of this training and are passionate about sharing it with current middle schoolers by volunteering their time.
Remember, this is a scholarship event for students selected by their schools at no cost to them, fully paid by the Rotary Clubs of Holland: with an additional grant from Rotary District 6290 (West Michigan and Northern Ontario). The scholarship includes all meals and overnight dorm accommodations in addition to the conference materials.
Holland Rotary and Rotaract Clubs thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your ongoing support. We highly value this partnership between the area schools and Rotary. Please contact us with any additional ideas about how we can best work together for our youth and community
Sincerely,
The Rotary Leaders for the 21st Century
“Principals”
Anne Whittlesey
Holland After-Hours Rotary, Educator, Director
Ed Swart, PhD
Rotary Club of Holland, Director Emeritus, Counselor
Assistant “Principals”
Kate Fornaratto, Educator, Curriculum
Linda Falstad, Grant Coordinator & Fundraising
Jim White, Educator, Fundraising
David Beattie, Hope College Liaison, Communication
