SPARKS – Karolina Salamon finds that compared to her home city of Wroclaw, Poland, Americans are tolerant, casual dressers and like to smile a lot. “I like it here,” she reported to Sparks Rotarians on Wednesday. “People don’t judge. I’m surprised they can wear sweatpants to class. In my country, people care how you look.”

The 17-year-old youth exchange student sponsored by the Sparks Rotary Club was the guest speaker at the organization’s weekly meeting Wednesday, presenting information about her country with a slideshow and answering questions about her reactions to life in the United States and as a student at Reno High School.

Rotary International, which provides support for district clubs, has a Youth Exchange Program that offers young people opportunities to live with several host families and attend school in another country for a year. They’re considered ambassadors for their culture and provide service to the Rotary club in the city where they stay.

Sparks Rotary president Kathy Carter said the tradition of hosting a student provides opportunities for all Rotarians to learn from each other. In addition to Salamon, the club also is hosting Marie Michel from Belgium and sent Cameron Meals of Spanish Springs High School to go to Chile.

“The youth in the program help promote worldwide peace,” Carter said.

Students stay with three families for a few months each during their year in a foreign country. They may only have parents come visit them after eight months so they can remain focused on their learning experiences.

So far, one of the biggest differences in the American lifestyle Salamon has noticed is diet.

“When I first came here, the children (of the host family) gave me ice cream for breakfast,” she said, evoking the audience to laughter.

She also discovered she likes cheeseburgers after talking about how Poland has white cheese.

“You don’t have white cheese,” she said.

Overall, she’s enjoying how her experience is enriching her personally.

“It’s going really well, she said. “I grow up a lot.” As an act of friendship, she presented a small flag representative of her Polish Rotary Club from home and Carter presented the first of the Sparks Rotary Club’s newly designed flag to Salamon.

The presentation of the Youth Exchange Program Also announced at the meeting Wednesday was word of recognition of the Sparks Rotary Club, which received nine honors in the Call for Recognition awards from Saturday’s Rotary District 5190 Conference for clubs based in northern California and northern Nevada. Among the awards were Club Service Project of the Year for its Mad Money Raffle, Club of Excellence, Presidential Citation and President of the Year Award for Area 8.

Awards were given based on scores in various categories.

Carter said its Best Membership Award represented the largest membership gain in the district. Sparks Rotary managed to garner 14 new memberships since July 1, 2009, which is unprecedented and impressive, considering the district’s goal for each club is get one new membership.

“Sparks Rotary Club is bucking the trend,” Carter said.