Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Introducing "Rotary Community Heroes of Hope" - a podcast dedicated to showcasing the profound impact of Rotary in District 5330 and beyond. Join us as we explore the remarkable stories of rotary heroes and initiatives that are transforming communities and creating hope around the world.
Rotary Community Heroes of Hope
Empowering Youth Through Words: The Four-Way Test Speech Contest
"Take a chance on yourself and go for it!" These powerful words from past winner Jason Davalos capture the transformative spirit of Rotary District 5330's Four-Way Test Speech Contest. This youth-focused program has become a launching pad for confident communicators and ethical leaders across our communities.
The contest invites high school students to craft speeches incorporating Rotary's Four-Way Test principles: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? What begins at the club level with pizza lunches and coaching sessions culminates in district competitions where young speakers showcase their remarkable talents while competing for cash prizes.
District Chair Mary Scott reveals the program's comprehensive support structure, including partnerships with Toastmasters and specialized coaching materials like the "Speech Sandwich" framework. Past winners Jason and Peyton share compelling testimony about how the experience shaped their futures—Jason now applying his communication skills with vulnerable patients as a nursing student, and Peyton pursuing journalism with an ethical foundation rooted in Four-Way Test principles.
"It doesn't define you as a speaker," Peyton reminds future participants about competition rankings, emphasizing that the true value lies in finding your voice and connecting with an audience. Beyond public speaking skills, the program provides networking opportunities, potential scholarship connections, and a pathway to continued Rotary involvement.
Ready to get involved? Contact your local Rotary club or reach out directly to Mary at maryqinpd@gmail.com. Don't miss the upcoming showcase featuring this year's winners at Benedict Castle on April 6th—tickets available at district5330.org. Subscribe and share the Community Heroes of Hope podcast to spread the word about this and other impactful Rotary programs!
Hello and welcome to the Community. Heroes of Hope, a podcast where we shine a light on the remarkable individuals and projects in Rotary District 5330 that bring hope and change to our local and global communities. I am Judy Zelfikar, your co-host and the current District Governor of Rotary District 5330.
Speaker 2:And I'm Niren McLean, the Rotary District Governor-Elect, and I'm Niren McLean, the Rotary District Governor-Elect. Together, we're diving deep into the heart of the community service, showcasing the impact of dedication and collaboration in addressing some of the most pressing challenges our communities face.
Speaker 1:Each episode, we'll tell stories of incredible people making a difference, innovating solutions and inspiring others to take action.
Speaker 2:We'll also be giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the projects that are transforming their lives, and we'll discuss how you, too, can get involved, contribute and be part of the positive change. Whether you're a seasoned Rotarian or just looking to give back, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore the journeys, challenges and successes of people like you who have stepped up to make a difference. Let's celebrate the spirit of community and the power of hope together.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to subscribe to the Community Heroes of Hope on your favorite podcast platform. Stay with us on this journey of inspiration and let's spread the message of hope further than ever.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in. Let's get started, nairin. One of the biggest things that we do in District 5330 is all of our youth programs and RILA and PRIDE and INTERACT and ROTARACT and we have quite a few, but we have a couple of programs that land under vocational service and today we have the opportunity to talk a little bit about that. This particular one is our four-way speech contest. How many students did you have in your club this year with a four-way speech contest?
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know. To be honest with you, the four-way speech contest, as well as the music, is something that our club has not been strong in, and I've been advocating for that. So that's a great question. I really don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1:And it does start at the club level. So the four-way speech contest invites students from our local high schools and they do a speech that could be about pretty much anything, as long as they weave the four-way test into it. And then those that win at the club level come up to the district level, and that brings me to who we have here today. So I am very pleased to welcome Mary Scott, who is the chairperson at the district level for our four-way speech contest. So, mary, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about how this program works at the district level?
Speaker 3:Thank you, judy, I'm really pleased to be here. The Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Contest and that's a mouthful to say is we had 16 students this last year, which means we had 16 clubs entering our contest. We actually had 17 and one couldn't make it. So we have been working to encourage this year to raise the quality, to support the club leaders by providing materials about how the speech would be structured and that sort of thing to the students, sending them examples of past winning speeches and so forth. So I'm working hard to make sure that all students have the opportunity to do this from a club level.
Speaker 1:My philosophy is that a lot of students win contests who have parents behind their backs helping them Expand that by having Rotarians assist those students who otherwise might not have the resources to become good public speakers and to learn about the Rotary four-way test. And it is such an important part of a student's journey into college and into their careers is having the ability to, and have the comfortableness about, speaking in front of others. And to that we have Jason here with us, who actually won the four-way speech contest four years ago. And Jason, can you talk a little bit about that experience and how that has impacted your life as you've gone into your college career?
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and it's a pleasure to be with all of you here today. And, as you mentioned, my name is Jason Davalos and I won the four-way speech contest back in 2021. And now, as I'm a senior in college, I'm preparing to graduate with my Bachelor's of science in nursing in May. Now the speech contest.
Speaker 4:I've really noticed how much it has really impacted the way that I approach others, especially in the clinical environment, as I approach patients who are in their most vulnerable state, and I now have the resources, I have the tools, those soft skills that we always talk about in professional development and some of my university classes. I now have that skill set to confidently and calmly approach these clients in a calm but also an empathetic manner as well. So I think that if I'm able to speak in front of a crowd of 50 plus people, then I can certainly approach a patient and their family in their hospital room, and I could do so in a way that's comforting, in a way that's maybe charismatic as well, in a way that's comforting in a way that's maybe charismatic as well and can bring a little bit of calm to their circumstances.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and that's so important. As you say, it is at their most vulnerable time.
Speaker 1:And it is a time when they need competence and compassion and leadership, so that's excellent. We also have one of our winners from this year's competition, peyton English. Peyton won second place. Peyton, can you come and tell us a little bit about yourself and what your experience has been in this contest?
Speaker 5:Hi, so my name is Peyton English and I did get second and the whole experience since I did the Rotary Speech Contest for about three years now. It's given me opportunities to really give my opinion out and especially motivate students at my school to get into speech and debate courses too as well. But the whole experience is really nice and refreshing. I've made so many friends with meeting new people at different clubs and different schools and really get into the culture of networking, as I will do that in my future career.
Speaker 1:And Peyton, if I remember correctly, you're on your way to journalism. Am I remembering that correctly?
Speaker 5:Yes, so my speech was journalism within constitutional principles alongside the Rotary's four-way test, and that's something that I really take deeply to because, with my career in journalism and broadcast, I want to make sure I provide truthful fairness beneficial to all and definitely build goodwill and better friendships within my journalism practices.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome, peyton, congratulations. That is something sorely needed all the time in our current society, so congratulations to you. Let me just ask both of you how did you hear about the four-way speech competition? Was it something that the Rotary Club came and promoted at your school? Was it something that the teachers or a sponsor at the school let everybody know about? How did you hear about the speech competition?
Speaker 5:Well, I originally heard about the speech contest from my middle school administrator, who who happened to be the person that got me into speech and debate, so that was really interesting and through more of that, I've also heard it from the club level too.
Speaker 4:So excellent and jason jason yeah, so when I was in high school at palm desert high school, our local palm desert rotary club is, and Jason and I actually learned through about the speech competition at a meeting they hosted and it was actually a pizza luncheon. So if you want to get a bunch of high school students to come in and listen to you, you can buy them pizza.
Speaker 4:Just bring pizza and you'll have a packed house. And that was exactly the case. And so I attended the luncheon and I got to learn more about the competition and I told myself I was a junior in high school. At this point I said you know what? I'll give it a shot. I, I had never had any prior speech or debate experience and I said I think this, this is a good time to to go ahead and go for it. So I, I joined the competition in my junior year of high school and I I had some very valuable practice at the high school, at the local school level, at Ponderosa High School, phenomenal coaches, dominic Fruckman and, of course, mary Scott helping me out navigate this new world of public speaking. So it was, it was a great introduction and by senior year that very next year, I was able to go ahead and take it all the way to the district and win the whole competition. But it was a very, very rewarding experience.
Speaker 2:Desert and other Rotary clubs give to young people is so important, and how to think, both in Peyton's case and Jason's case, how the arc of their life has been pushed a little bit more in one direction and to help support them on to an unknown but successful future. So you know, mary, and to you and all the other clubs out there and I think that's really important for other clubs to realize that you need to get involved with the youth, the youth of our future, first of all of our country. So in 20 years, you know, peyton may be running the Washington Post.
Speaker 1:I saw her speak. She probably will be.
Speaker 2:And Jason's going to be the president of Loma Linda University Medical Center or something, and you know that is so important. And just to think that Mary and others gave them that little nudge and gave them the opportunity and the strength to say you know what, I'll try that Let me step out, that is so critical. So kudos to you guys for stepping out and taking the opportunity and to Mary and the other clubs for getting involved with the youth. It's the future of our country and that's so needed.
Speaker 1:So thank you for that and, like the pizza, there's an incentive along with this. So these students each win actual hard cash dollars at the club level and then they win prizes at the district level as well. And, mary, I'd like maybe you to talk a bit about some of the coaching you know Jason mentioned coaching, and the coaching is not just the speech but also the presence and talk a little bit more about what you do and what your associates do to help these students be prepared, and in which ways do you do that?
Speaker 3:Well, I would like to cite our current club level coordinator, Massey Pitt, who is following along with the program that we developed where they meet with the students at lunchtime, and so it's a very short meeting and she does. We do bring pizza and we bring a little little Mandarin, oranges and bottles of water and the kids can bring their own lunches. But if we didn't do that they'd have to stand in line to go get their lunch. So that that's an incentive to come and a way to get them in, to get them sooner, and we basically meet with them, I would say a maximum of five Thursday afternoons in a row right after winter break, and we start with what the speech is about and we share with them what we call the Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Sandwich, which is a document that shows what goes on top, what goes in the middle and what goes on the bottom of the speech itself. So we share that with them.
Speaker 3:We bring other students in who have done well. Before we show videos we talk about, we give them a piece of document that says a speech is not an essay, because so many schools do not have speaking speech programs to an extent, so we have little coaching materials that we pass along to the students, and the most important document, I think, is we give them the score sheet in advance. How can you know what standards you're going to be moving, I think is we give them the score sheet in advance. How can you know what standards you're going to be moving, you know to achieve, unless you have that score sheet? So we're working with I have Zoom meetings with my chair people throughout the district to encourage them to provide those items and to coach the kids that way. Some schools do, some clubs do just pass it on to a particular teacher at their particular school and sometimes those teachers accept and use those materials and other times maybe not so much. So we're encouraging people to make sure they understand what the standards are.
Speaker 1:It's important that the clubs be involved, and I've been to a couple of different clubs where I've listened to the participants in the speech contest and it's very clear, those that didn't get all those great instructions you're talking about, because, you know, maybe they did an amazing speech but it didn't have the four-way test anywhere in it and then they're, you know, disqualified from the score sheet and you, just, I, just my heart just bleeds for them because it's like, oh, my goodness, you did such a good job. Can we talk a little bit about how Toastmasters is also intertwined in this? I know that Rotary and Toastmasters have kind of come together in a partnership, and what brings me to this is watching Peyton speak, and this happened with pretty much everybody, but Peyton specifically has a very excellent grasp on how to use hand gestures while she was speaking and that I think I would assume is part of the coaching. She did it meticulously. So can we do we speak a little bit to that, mary, and then maybe Peyton, to what kind of coaching that you got as well?
Speaker 3:Sure, at the club level, we had a partnership with Toastmasters, and so Toastmasters not only judged, helped to judge the speeches, but they came in and helped to coach, and I'm also encouraging the schools to consider having a junior Toastmasters program at their school, which would be wonderful. So Jason mentions Dominique, dominique Fructman, and she partnered with me at the very beginning to help coach these students and she is a champion Toastmaster. So we encourage that to take place, and this year, more than half of would do in Toastmasters, so we collected a written compendium of what they said one year in 2023. And then we hand that out to our students to say this is what the Toastmasters see and this is what they suggest for you.
Speaker 1:So, Peyton, thank you Mary. Peyton, can you speak to where you learned this skill that you have of including proper hand gestures in your communication, in your speech?
Speaker 5:Yeah, of course. I mean when I was like really little, this was like one of the funniest things I could remember. I would be in grocery stores with my mom and dad and I would always talk to random strangers, ask them how their day was, ask them how they're doing. So I think that's really started where I was really communicative and really talkative to people. But also with the hand gestures.
Speaker 5:I learned that from my grandfather at a very early age, so I knew I was going to be a public speaker since very little. I like talking and I like communicating, so I think that's very important, but also with the hand gestures. Sorry, but also with the hand gestures. My grandfather also told me you want to make sure your hand gestures correlate to what you're speaking about. If you're having full theatrics when speaking, that can really take away from what your main point is in conversation. And also I like to point out eye contact is a major thing in public speaking because you want to make sure that your audience it feels like you're having a conversation with them instead of talking at them, and I feel like that's a very crucial thing to learn.
Speaker 2:Well, you got it down. She executed it perfectly.
Speaker 1:I will have to say Peyton.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, I tell you. The difference with Jason and Peyton at these young ages is extraordinary, because I did not have that speech support that you have. I remember giving a presentation in business school and what was supposed to have been a 20-minute conversation or 20-minute presentation was over in about four and a half minutes.
Speaker 1:Hello, how are you? Goodbye.
Speaker 2:That's right. So the confidence and the competence and what you exude and everything is that makes such a difference. So I'm just so excited about this program and the impact upon the kids.
Speaker 1:It is definitely something that is one of the best parts of what we do at Rotary. And speaking of that, mary, how, if someone is listening to this program and say they're a Rotarian, or maybe they're not a Rotarian and they'd like to get this into their schools or into their region, what would you recommend that they do?
Speaker 3:If they know a Rotarian in their local area they can contact their local club. They can also reach me anytime. I seem to be doing this year round to help people get started, because it does require some work getting contacts with the schools and setting up the timelines and so forth. So may I give my email address here, you may if you don't mind people sending you emails.
Speaker 1:I don't mind.
Speaker 3:So it's MaryQINPD, like Mary Queen in Palm Desert.
Speaker 1:Just like that.
Speaker 3:At gmailcom, so I'd be happy to have anyone contact me. We work with homeschool students, we work with private school students and public school, high school, high school level, but any of those kinds of schools would be perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:How do you get the information out to the homeschool? That's a very important point that you just brought up there.
Speaker 3:Well, that's the Rotary Club. The Rotary Club has its network of schools that they work with, and so that's up to the clubs to do that. And we do have several students who were a couple of students who were homeschooled that were in our contest this time.
Speaker 1:So the clubs make their own contacts and then they send them to us Yep, once they, once they've gone through the club contest, then the first ones. Speaking of how a showcase I'm actually going to bring up the showcase we this year are having both the district speech contestant winners and the music contest winners at a special showcase on April 6th. Mary, can you talk a little bit about that, where that is, when that is and how people can get involved?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's in a beautiful facility called the Benedict Castle in Riverside. It's an amazing place. It's a one of a kind. It is truly a castle and we will be showcasing the top three speech winners and, I believe, the top nine music winners, because there are three different categories of music and it does have limited seating. That's the only disadvantage of that particular venue. It only seats 100, but we would like to get that 100. So my suggestion is to contact your club and say I would like to go to this. Please put me in. It's from, I believe it's from 1 to no, from 3 to 4.30 pm on Sunday April 6th. It's going to be a lovely, lovely concert where the performers are all young people.
Speaker 1:And you can go to district5330.org and look on the events calendar and the tickets should be on sale there now. I believe that those got put up this last week.
Speaker 3:So I assumed that only Rotarians could access that, but you're right. Yep, it is yes. You can just click on that and make a reservation for it. I believe it is free of charge.
Speaker 1:No, I think we were charging $10. Oh, it's $15. Yeah, $15. Yeah, there's a little bit of charge.
Speaker 3:So thank you for that correction, Judy.
Speaker 1:No worries, Any final thoughts Jason.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. To any students out there who are considering just taking a shot and starting their journey with the Rotary 4-Way Speech Contest, I say just take a chance on yourself, believe on yourself and go for it. I remember Mary can attest to this how timid and nervous I was at the beginning of this competition, but as I learned to embrace public speaking and just how you can incorporate your personality, your humor, your charisma it's not about an essay. You don't have to tackle some huge ethical or political question. You can speak about your personal experiences, a story, and you can make it your own. So own this competition, own this speech, make it your own and go out there and have fun with it. That's really the main goal that I'd like to hammer with all the contestants is that this is really about having fun with your speech and if you do that, all the other skills will follow. So good luck and happy speaking to all of those contestants out there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, great, great advice, peyton, any final words?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I can definitely speak for my generation. When giving a speech, it can be really scary coming down to the placement where you rank and I just want to say no matter if you get second, third, fourth or et cetera, it doesn't define you as a speaker. If you're speaking and giving your opinion enthusiastically and you're engaging the audience, that is more than a rank, than first place. So this goes out to anyone that wants to try public speaking but is too scared to see where they are Just do it. All the great public speakers didn't let a rank stop them from being their news.
Speaker 2:Excellent advice.
Speaker 1:Excellent advice. I wish everybody would understand that.
Speaker 3:And Mary, any final words, I think the Rotary four-way speech also contributes to the network that these students have access to, to other aspects of Rotary, such as scholarships. So we've kept in touch with Jason through our club over the years and it's been very rewarding for us and we hope for him that we match resources and we meet the students through this process and then put them in touch with other aspects of Rotary.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and that someday they will also become Rotarians in a club near them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, or Rotaractors.
Speaker 1:Whatever, it's all Rotary.
Speaker 2:It's all Rotary.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate it. This podcast will be available on district5330.org there is a button called the podcast and it'll be up. We edit them and get them out once a week for the next four to six weeks. So keep an eye out for that and share with your friends, and maybe they too will get excited about our District 5330 four-way speech contest.
Speaker 2:Jason and Peyton. We're looking for great things out of both of you and you've done just amazingly well so far. And, mary, thank you for all you do and your team. It's just quite extraordinary, thank you.
Speaker 1:So that wraps up this episode of Heroes of Hope. We are so happy that we have an audience out there listening. We want you to subscribe, share and tell your friends about the Rotary Community Heroes of Hope, because that's how we get the word out about the impact we're having in this world.