Rotary Team From South Korea Visits Newtown

A team of young businessmen and women from South Korea toured Newtown recently as guests of the Newtown Rotary Club.

The Rotary Group Study Exchange Team included Team Leader Rotarian Sang-Kyu Kim and four young business people between the ages of 26 and 34. They have been traveling through southern Connecticut for four weeks learning about the lives and people of this part of the state, and living separately with Rotarian families. Each year more than 500 teams of this type travel from their own country to another country as part of Rotary’s theme “World Peace through Understanding.”

The South Korean team was escorted by Newtown Rotarian Richard DeLollis, who organized the visitation. While here, they visited Curtis Packaging Co, where they were impressed with all the large modern machinery used to make specialized boxes of all types and sizes for many companies they were familiar with, the Cyrenius H. Booth Library where the old library was preserved and blended in with the new modern extension, and the World Help Foundation, which is endeavoring to provide safe drinking water throughout the world.

During this four-week period, a second team from the Heidelberg, Germany, area has been traveling through southern Connecticut and, at least once a week, both teams get together on an event. A farewell barn dance was held in Woodbury and was attended by more than 100 Rotarians and their families, many of whom had hosted a team member at their home for a week.

Rotarians Duane and Dot Baumert of Newtown hosted team leader Sang-Kyu Kim for a week and found it a most interesting and inspiring experience. Each day the team meets and as a group visit and explore a particular town or area under the guidance of a local Rotarian(s).

Currently a team from Connecticut is doing the same thing as guests of the Rotarians of the Heidelberg area. When they return they will be visiting many Rotary clubs to tell them about their experiences during their four weeks in Germany. One day of every week is a Vocational Day. On this day the team splits up and each member visits with a person or a company of their profession as they trade information of how the profession is conducted in their respective countries.