Interact Club finishes 1 busy year
PUTNAM — Paige Perry and Gabriell Cerasiello, seniors at Putnam High School, rang the Interact bell for the last time at its award and Induction celebration May 26.
Perry and Cerasiello were this year’s Putnam Rotary’s Interact Club co-presidents. They finished one busy year!
In their presentation they listed all the events and activities the club took part in throughout the school year. In August the club: Volunteered at the Kid’s Zone in Rotary Park, distributed backpacks and school supplies to families at TEEG and worked in TEEG’s community garden; September: Worked on their scarecrow for the Scarecrow contest in Rotary Park; October: Collected Halloween costumes to distribute at TEEG’s fall fest, had a booth set up at the Great Pumpkin Fest where they collected canned goods and donations for Caitlyn’s Cupboard at Day Kimball Hospital.
In November: Created ornaments for the elderly shut-ins, organized a food drive at WINY, and participated in the Camp Quinebaug Turkey Dip; December: The club’s 29th year bell ringing for the local Salvation Army office; January: Salvation Army Kettle campaign pizza party and made Valentine cards for the shut-ins; February: Participated in the Fire and Ice festival carving an ice block into a soup can to remind people of food insecurity.
In March: Volunteered at the QVR Rotaract Trivia Night and made St. Patrick Day cards; April: Volunteered at the YMCA Healthy Kids Day, and held a food drive at WINY. In May they volunteered at the Putnam Rotary Club’s Noe Poulin Fishing Derby.
Rotarians Kayla Morin and Roberta Rocchetti, Interact advisors, gave awards to students who volunteered at many of the Interact club’s activities. This year’s top award went to Paige Perry for 84.5 hours of community service to the Interact club.
Rotary Club President Kathy Kirk awarded the new Interact Club co-presidents, Calleigh Levesque and Mabel Perreault, Interact pins. She said she was “So proud of the club because they really live up to Rotary’s motto ‘Service Above Self’.”
Levesque and Perreault, both from TMHS, said their upcoming year will focus on education and literacy. They plan to work with the Putnam and Thompson libraries and they want to continue to work with TEEG and the Salvation Army as well. Alyssa Davis will be the new historian for the club.
The club’s first meeting for the 2026 -2027 school year will be at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 8 in the Putnam Public Library. For info:
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Interact
From left: Alyssa Daniels, Ava Tucker, Paige Perry, Gabriell Cerasiello, Billie Lewis, Mabel Perreault, Calleigh Levesque, Estella Freitas. More photos on our FB page on Wed. night.
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