Rock Falls Rotarians gathered to celebrate 31 years of membership of Pat Novak in Rock Falls Rotary. Pat's daughter came home from school all excited about their exchange program that sent high school students overseas for a school year and she wanted to participate.
Pat and her husband Ron followed up to find out more about the Rotary Youth Exchange program and did allow their daughter to go to Japan her junior year. The program had amazed her as to how secure she felt her daughter would be in another culture and that Rotary truly had her daughter's back. Needless to say, that experience of her daughter opened the door to membership and the rest is history. Pat often spoke as a parent to groups of students going overseas, she hosted exchange students into life long friendships. attended numerous international conventions. When the secretary of our club for health reasons had to step down, Pat picked up becoming Secretary for the next 20 years. The members of her club wanted to thank her for her Rotary membership and look forward to many more in the years to come.