Posted by Dave Panabaker on Dec 16, 2019
It was wonderful to have Maddy Caparini with us today, to give us her presentation about her year in the Republic of Czechoslovakia.  She was only 15 when she embarked upon her life changing experience and she spend the 2018 - 2019 school year in Trebic, Czech Republic.  This community is about 2 hours from Prague, but she truly enjoyed the community.  She was hosted by a small Rotary club, with only about a dozen members but they had three different Rotary exchange students that year.
 
 
Trebic has a terrible history from WW2, it was once one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe but was basically cleared out during the war and very few family's remain.  It is full of UNESCO World Heritage sites, they have many many churches and castles....Maddy really loved it!
 
 
She had 3 host families, in a variety of locales while she was there.  She did many presentations in her school about Canada, and made many new friends.  She showed photos of all of the host families, of the food that was popular, of her classmates and her various trips.  This particular District hosted 94 Exchange students, we will have 12 in our District this year according to Brian Robinson, who was her outbound councilor.   Maddy especially enjoyed her Eurotour, which is the District trip through France, Spain and Italy.  She showed many great photos.
 
Maddy was emphatic that she thanked Rotary, particularly her sponsor club which was Saamis - Medicine Hat, for this life changing experience.  She is very grateful for the time and money spent on her behalf and she promised to be involved with Rotary in the future.  She was thanked by President Margie.