Beginning July 1, 2021, our club will have a new president. Here's a biography of Chesa Keane, incoming club president for 2021-2022.
 
Chesa Keane, Reno Centennial Sunset (RCS) President for 2021-2022 Rotary year, has been with RCS since September 2010. It was a desire to be involved in a group that could make a difference in the community and world that was her reason for joining Rotary.

But 2010 was not her first exposure to Rotary. She was selected to join Noreen Leary on a Rotary Group Study Exchange to India to the state of Uttar Pradesh. This is where you find New Delhi, the Taj Mahal and India’s beauty. Beautiful, and strange, and difficult at times and other times filled with awe and laughter. Returning from India, Chesa determined to go out on exchange again, this time as a GSE Team Leader. That made joining Rotary 14 years later an
imperative.

Chesa’s focus was initially centered in Youth Services, namely Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE), when the president at the time, David Zybert, motioned for Chesa to come over and sign a paper as she arrived at a meeting. “Sure, what is it?” she said innocently signing the paperwork to become the new RYE Counselor for the club. At the time, she had absolutely no knowledge as to what RYE even stood for – just another acronym. Attending meetings for which she had no knowledge, it didn’t take long to become immersed in this important Rotary program. After years of involvement at the club and District level, she is today, the District RYE Executive
Secretary, taking over the position held by Jon Greene for 18 years. Daunting, but still with a deep love of the importance and value of RYE to youth in our community.

In 2013, she went on a Group Study Exchange trip to India again, this time to Andre Pradesh, but as a team leader. In recounting favorite memories of that trip, it always returns to the day she participated in a National Immunization Day giving little babies and children polio drops, knowing that they could look forward to a polio-free life. Free of the disease also meant that these children and their families could have a future without having to experience the pain and crippling effects that polio brings to the entire community where the family lives. Pride in Rotary begins with their eradication efforts in the world and their unflagging successes with
partnerships to ensure that polio is removed from the earth – forever.

As president, Chesa would like to focus on a local project that is able to bring some relief to the homeless in our community. How is that? Not sure yet because the impact of homelessness hasmay sources, many challenges, and is unlikely to be relieve in great part in one Rotary year. But it is a start. Globally, Chesa would like to extend her focus on helping the homeless by creating a project where our area is the host of the international project, finding partners to help us, and again, making some impact. It’s a challenge. Wish her luck.
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