Pleasant Hills Rotarians foster student leadership, volunteerism

Her father was a Rotarian, her husband is a Rotarian.

And for a long time, Cindy Weiss assisted her hometown Pleasant Hills club with fundraisers and other activities, even before global service organization Rotary International’s 1980s decision to admit women.

She recalled lending a hand at one of Pleasant Hills’ annual Harvest Festival, a club tradition dating back to the 1950s for which her dad, the late Joe Weiss, had a particular affinity.

“It was like a light bulb went off: Why am I just helping when I could be involved?” Cindy said of her 2023 decision to join her husband, Robert Weiss, as a member. “I don’t know anything different. I grew up with it.”

So did Mallory and Noah Weiss, their adult children who are now part of the club, too. Mallory has multiple roles of chairing community service, events and fellowship, and her dad is president-elect.

He’ll succeed Cindy, who leads the club through July. She previously served as membership chair, helping the number of Pleasant Hills Rotarians grow from 16 to 34.

With all of her family connections, it’s appropriate that her club places an emphasis on promoting Rotary’s motto, “Service Above Self,” among young people through a program called Interact, short for “international action.” Pleasant Hills sponsors Interact clubs for students ages 12-18 at Brentwood, South Park and Thomas Jefferson high schools.

Cindy Weiss is an alumna of the latter, and she visited with several other Rotarians on Oct. 21 for TJ’s first Interact meeting of the academic year.

Another graduate of the school, Darlene Kruth, serves as the Pleasant Hills club’s vocational service and youth services chair.

“The purpose and goal for an Interact club is to develop leadership, integrity, respect and teamwork, to be better communicators, and to promote global goodwill and cultural understanding,” she told the Thomas Jefferson students gathered in the classroom of English teacher Denise Breisinger.

She is one of the school’s three staff Interact sponsors, along with social worker Michelle Lander and counselor Regina Slater.

Among the functions of Interact clubs, Kruth explained, are service projects on local and international levels, and helping the sponsoring Rotary club with fundraising activities. Money generated, in turn, benefits various nonprofit organizations.

For the benefit of potentially interested students, Kruth described the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards development program, conducted between school years for young people who want to learn new skills and build confidence.

Thomas Jefferson senior Kaci Byrne of Pleasant Hills, this year’s Interact vice president, attended a RYLA program at Westminster College two summers ago.

“I didn’t want to go at first, and then once I got there, I had a really good time. Being away from home and then learning how to be a leader taught me so much about myself,” she said. “It really changed my life.”

Mallory Weiss, who teaches in the West Jefferson Hills School District, serves as a RYLA counselor, and her mother encouraged the TJ Interact students to learn more about the program.

“Really, really give it some thought,” Cindy Weiss said. “I would love to send three or four of you there, because you will get a lot from it.”

In addition to RYLA, she and Kruth provided information about the Rotary Youth Exchange, a program that offers short- and long-term opportunities to visit other countries and become immersed in other cultures. The Pleasant Hills club sponsored a Brentwood student’s stay in Thailand last year.

“She embraced the culture,” Kruth said. “So many things were similar, but so many things were different, and she really enjoyed her time there.”

The Weisses – while in college, Cindy had the opportunity to study in Italy through the program – plan to host a student from another country next summer.

Another Rotary project involving Thomas Jefferson is a Peace Pole, a monument that displays the message “May peace prevail on earth,” on the school campus.

“You can help design it,” Weiss told the Interact students. “We can put your mascot on it. We can put anything else that you feel is important to your group.”

She further encouraged them to invite “the people who made a difference in your life” to the pole’s dedication ceremony when scheduled.

In leading the Interact meeting, sponsor Slater acknowledged students’ contributions to community activities, including some who volunteered as coaches for a youth flag football program when no parents did so.

“These two young ladies really stepped up, put in hours of community service both for practice and for the games on Saturdays, and their team won the championship game,” Slater said, with a subsequent round of applause for Maryam Gafurova and Preneeta Mishra.

Another Pleasant Hills Rotarian is Janet Sardon, West Jefferson Hills’ superintendent, who serves as the club’s public image chair and Facebook editor.

“I work with a number of different groups in the district, and Rotary is always one that really stands by Service Above Self in working with kids and administrators and teachers and families,” she said while attending the October Interact meeting. “They give and don’t expect anything in return, and there’s something really great about that.”

She touted Rotary’s support of students.

“The value for our kids is that they learn how to help others. They learn how to give back to the community. They learn how to present themselves in a professional fashion and speak in front of a group of people,” Sardon said. “This one group allows that to happen.”

For more information, visit pleasanthillsrotary.org.