Dear Rotary,----I hope this message finds you well. We are thrilled to share some exciting news with you – thanks to your incredible support, The wildbots have secured a strong position at the upcoming provincial championships! We are currently ranked #61 in Canada, and we could not have achieved this without your generous sponsorship. We would love for you to join us as we compete at provincials! You are invited to attend the event in person and cheer us on, or you can watch the action online. Your support means the world to us, and we'd be thrilled to have you there, either in the stands or virtually, to experience this exciting milestone firsthand. Provincials are from April 1st to April 5th, located at The international Centre in Mississauga. If you'd like to come watch in person matches run from about 11am - 8pm and the venue is open from 8 am. To watch us compete online please check out: https://frc-events.firstinspires.org/2024/ONCMP/watch You can also watch our matches on twitch and YouTube! Thank you once again for being such an integral part of our journey. We couldn't have made it this far without you!  Best regards, Build,Code,Drive and Business team 

--YOUTH EXCHANGE LETTTER--

Bonjour de France! Wow! I know February is a short month, but it went fast! I had some issues but luckily, they are resolved now, and I was able to have a great month. I had a great time with my friends at school and with Rotary, French is getting easier and I'm overall still having an amazing time. With bad news first, I did have to change my last host family. I have had some issues with them before and have put in a lot of effort trying to build a good relationship. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work. My host family had complained about me to the district chair. Apparently, they didn’t think I was making an effort to interact with them. I found that my efforts were not welcome making me keep more to myself. My district wanted to know what was going on, and decided the situation was complicated. I wrote an email with all the details, and as a result, I was told to change families that week. While this was crazy, I am much less stressed now. My Rotary club isn't very active here and that can be difficult, but they came through for me when it was necessary. The good news is, over the vacation I was able to go to the movies with one of my friends. We talked a lot, and I was so happy I was able to speak French and understand everything! I know I have been here for six months, but it still amazes me how fast it all goes and how much I have accomplished. I know my French isn't perfect (honestly a week ago I forgot the word for eyebrows so I called them eye mustaches) but I'm truly having a great time even if I can't be perfect. Having many kids in the Rotary District has been great, they plan lots of events for us to do together; this month we went bowling and on a bus tour of Lille. Having the big group is great, it reminds me I'm not the only one that has these troubles with host families or just in general. We are all different but can agree on a lot and now share the same experience. It's awesome! Ups and downs are normal; I'm not worried. I'm going to continue to do everything I can and keep on learning because it's only getting better. No matter what, I have many people here that support me, and I am making the most out of this year.  Georgie Street 

--ENVIRONMENTAL--

Food waste or air travel pollution – which is worse?  Food waste contributes 8 to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter after China and the United States. Roughly 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year! Air travel accounts for about 2.5 to 3% of global CO₂ emissions, according to the International. Energy Agency (IEA). However, the totalclimate impact of aviation is higher—some studies estimate around 4 to 5% due to non-CO₂ effects. As other sectors decarbonize, aviation is projected to account for a larger share of global emissions. In terms of global  greenhouse gas emissions, food waste has a significantly larger footprint compared to air travel. However, the per-person carbon footprint of a single flight is much higher than that of food waste, because only a small proportion of the global population flies. The cumulative impact of wasted food is massive and more distributed because everyone consumes food. Addressing food waste has a larger global potential for reducing emissions but tackling both issues is vital to mitigate climate change. What can we as individual Rotarians, clubs and District do?