The Steamboat Springs and Ski Town Rotary Clubs honored 10 students who were awarded full-ride scholarships this summer to the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards camps in Estes Park, where participants built skills in communication, problem-solving, teamwork, ethics and community service in a week-long intensive leadership development program, according to a Thursday statement. 

The students — two Steamboat Springs Middle School seventh-graders and eight students from Steamboat Springs High School — were chosen based on their experiences, accomplishments and in-person interviews. They will now be challenged to brainstorm and lead a new project in Steamboat involving Rotary members from both clubs to improve the community. 

“Hearing from our RYLA students was a wonderful reminder to the impact Rotary can have beyond the projects we complete and the dollars we give,” said Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs President Tara Weaver in the statement. 

“By sending these young people to RYLA, we gave them the opportunity to discover their own strengths, build confidence, learn how to work with others, and begin to see themselves as leaders,” she continued. “When we invest in young people, we may never fully know how far that investment will reach — but today’s RYLA students gave us a pretty great glimpse.”