Bermuda’s getting a second chance with a popular youth group from the 1970s.

The Interact Club helped a number of noted Bermudians get their start: Entertainer Bruce Barritt, Mid Atlantic Wellness COO Patrice Dill, businessman Wendell Brown and the late politician Nelson Bascome were all members.

The Rotary Clubs of Bermuda are banking on it doing the same for Millenials. Twenty-six students between the ages of 12 and 18 have signed up for the new club, which starts in September.

The group held a reunion earlier this year in hopes of getting former members to help.

Lesilene Williams is one of those who signed on as a mentor.

The focus of the new group is the same as the one she attended in the 70s, she said.

“The Interact Club is designed to develop leadership skills in youth and promote service above self. [Rotary members] Kirk Kitson and the late Jay Bluck started the first Interact Club in 1972 or 1973. What was so good about it is we learned how to run meetings, we learned about the parliamentary process; we had a president, a secretary, a treasurer and I think that’s where we learnt a lot of leadership skills.”

The students were selected from various high schools based on their principals’ recommendations.

The club had about 50 members. It ran for about six years until they “drifted off to college or had families of their own”, Mrs Williams said.

The relaunch was the brainchild of Hamilton Rotarian Cathy Bassett. She’d never heard of Interact Clubs but saw one in action on a visit to the United Nations last year.

“She was so inspired by the work they were doing that she came back home and said, ‘Hey, maybe we can have one in Bermuda’, only to find that there was one many years ago,” Mrs Williams said.

She fondly recalled her time as a member.

“We say we had the first End to End,” she said. “We walked from St George’s to Dockyard in the mid-70s. Me and my friends made it as far as Southampton Glebe [now Dalton E Tucker Primary School] and then we just couldn’t walk anymore. We flagged down a car and once I sat down my legs seized up. My brother and dad had to help me out.

“Another great memory is all the charity work. We helped a family on Happy Valley Road who had a fire in their house. The group rallied and went to clean it up. That was really moving for most of the members. We weren’t used to what we saw. It was eye-opening for us. Whenever we saw the family on the street after, they would speak and they recognise us to this day.”

The group would complete two major projects a year, Mrs Williams added.

“We did a lot of work in the community — bake sales, clothing drives, we had loads of car washes — and networked with other young groups. I remember a weekend on White’s Island as a leadership retreat where we did work with the Sunshine League. It gave a sense of community, a social cause and leadership skills that’s evident in many of our past members and the job they’re doing and the areas they’re involved in in the community.”