Everyone should live abroad at some point in their lives.
That belief drives Julia Prullage every day and is why she eagerly stepped in as youth exchange outbound coordinator for the Mid-Missouri Rotary District.
Prullage joined Rotary District 6080 in 2014 to help with the youth exchange program.
After serving as the youth exchange compliance coordinator for a couple of years, she and her husband, Joe, became the outbound coordinators in 2017.
"If you have to live and adapt in a different culture, I think you will have greater appreciation for humanity and your culture and somebody else's," Prullage said.
As outbound coordinator, Prullage helps find local students who want to go abroad and prepares them for their journey. She also must find local host families to care for inbound students from various countries.
Safety and health information is always a top priority, Prullage said, but Rotary also wants to prepare students to learn the language, handle culture shock and answer difficult questions about the United States.
Rotary's main goal is to promote world peace, Prullage said, and she believes the organization's youth exchange program is at the forefront of promoting that message.
Students on exchange impact not only the people they meet abroad, but also their friends and family who hear their stories about that country's culture. Exchange students knowingly - and unknowingly - change others' perceptions of their home and host countries, Prullage said.
"It's kind of like a drop that creates this ripple, ripple, ripple," she said.
That ripple is one of the reasons she decided to join Rotary. Her son went to Colombia for a year through the Rotary youth exchange program.
"We go to visit him and see the area and meet his host families, and it was life-changing," she said.
Growing up, Prullage moved around multiple times and eventually lived in Puerto Rico from 1972-76. Even though she was in her early teenage years at the time, Prullage said living in Puerto Rico was an eye-opening experience.
While Prullage loves preparing students for their exchange, she said her favorite part is listening to the outbound students' experiences when they return from their year-long stay.
The students provide a lot of information about their time in a different country, she said, but how the students have matured over that year is what impresses her.
"It's them growing up but also the resilience to tackle anything and try different things," she said.
Prullage is currently looking for students who wish to participate in the youth exchange program in 2021-22. The local Rotary clubs will host an informational open house 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday at First Presbyterian Church, 324 Madison St. in Jefferson City.
Along with being the outbound coordinator, Prullage also serves as president for the Jefferson City Breakfast Rotary Club. However, many times the two volunteer roles intersect, as the Breakfast Rotary Club has sponsored dozens of outbound and inbound students through the youth exchange program, she said.
Prullage, whose one-year term will end in July, helps organize the Breakfast Rotary Club's meetings and events.
The Breakfast Rotary Club has volunteered at the ABLE book sale, picked up trash along Missouri Boulevard, given Valentine's Day bags to women at HALO, and held fundraisers for the Boys & Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Rape and Abuse Crisis Service.
While Prullage loves volunteering in the community, she said attending the weekly Rotary meetings has helped her have a better thumb on the community.
Every week, the club invites community members to chat about topics like local and state government issues, the information technology program at the Missouri River Regional Library and surviving polio.
The club, along with several other Central Missouri Rotary Clubs, also raises money to improve water in the Darien Province in Panama. They've completed three projects so far for the area, Prullage said.
"Where Panama joins into Colombia, that's a whole jungle region and it's very, very poor," Prullage said. "And a lot of places don't have clean water to drink. A lot of the bacteria stunts the growth and educational capacities of students and impacts whether they can learn and parents can work."