Rotary Reefs · A Dedication
From the Green Mountains to the reefs of The Bahamas
This page is dedicated to Deb Schaner, marine biology teacher at Randolph Union High School in Randolph, Vermont, to her seventeen student divers, and to the new RUHS Interact Club. A small farming town in Vermont is raising a generation of reef restorers.
- Home port
- Randolph, Vermont, USA
- Dive site
- Coral reefs of The Bahamas
- Science partner
- Perry Institute for Marine Science
- Home afloat
- The Morning Star, one week
- Rotary recognition
- Vermont project, 100 Projects in 100 Countries
The program
A classroom that ends on the reef
For several years, Deb Schaner has run her own coral reef restoration program at Randolph Union High School. Students earn their SCUBA certification through an online course and practice dives, learning buoyancy control, how to handle the unexpected underwater, and strict safety procedures. Then they travel to The Bahamas and spend a week living aboard the Morning Star, a sailing research vessel, working beside scientists from the Perry Institute for Marine Science.
In 2026, seventeen RUHS students rode the Dartmouth Coach to the airport and flew to Nassau. Their first dives built confidence in deeper, saltier water. Then Perry Institute coral specialists Kate Harrison and Duran Mitchell led them to the coral nurseries, where students cleared harmful algae and debris from the “trees” that hold young staghorn coral as it grows. They learned how disease, bleaching from warming water, invasive species and pollution threaten reefs that support more than 4,000 species of fish.
The school, the parents and above all the students love this program. Students leave having seen with their own eyes how damaged a reef can be, and knowing that their own hands helped it heal. Many call it the week that changed their lives.
The 2026 students raised more than $40,000 themselves through months of work: summer jobs, events, raffles and thousands of home baked goods. They had steady help from the Randolph community, the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, local companies, and Randolph’s two Rotary clubs, the Randolph Sunrise Rotary Club (Deb’s own club) and the Randolph Rotary Club, which meet at different times but raise funds and serve together.
2026 in the log book
A year that brought Randolph into Rotary’s reef network
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The expedition
Seventeen RUHS student divers sail for a week aboard the Morning Star with Perry Institute scientists, tending coral nurseries and diving the reefs of the Exumas. Every student comes home a certified reef rescue diver.
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Vermont’s project in 100 Projects in 100 Countries
Deb submits the Bahamas Reef Rescue dive team to Rotary’s 100 Projects in 100 Countries initiative, and it is chosen to represent the state of Vermont.
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On stage at Environmental Xperience at EarthX, Dallas
Deb presents the program on stage at the Environmental Xperience at EarthX in Dallas, joined by two divers from the January trip. There she meets Rotary International Past President Barry Rassin and Rotarian Wade Nomura, who offer to help her write her first Rotary Foundation global grant.
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A budget, a partnership and bake sales
Barry Rassin shares a budget with Rotarians in The Bahamas for student divers coming to learn and clean the reefs. The RUHS Interact students hold fundraisers for the next trip. Rotary Reefs begins folding the program into its Students Teaching Students model.
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A new Interact Club
One of the student divers writes a first hand account of the trip, from fundraisers to the reef. Past District Governor Sonny Holt shares it with Rotary leaders, and its author will serve as the first president of the new Interact Club at Randolph Union High School.
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Three quarters of the way there
Rotarians have raised $46,596 toward training Vermont students to dive and restore reefs in The Bahamas, with $15,065 still to go.
A letter of thanks
To Deb Schaner and Barry Rassin
Dear Deb and Barry,
On behalf of Rotary Reefs, the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group and the Rotary Club of Newport Beach, thank you for your commitment to our environment, our ocean and the coral reefs that so much of life depends on.
Deb, you have shown that a classroom in the Green Mountains of Vermont can change a reef in The Bahamas. Year after year you have trained young divers, raised the money one bake sale at a time, and put your students in the water beside real scientists. Those students come home as reef restorers, and now as Rotary Interactors. What you have built at Randolph Union High School is exactly what Rotary means by people of action.
Barry, from the moment you met Deb at the Environmental Xperience at EarthX in Dallas, you made her students your own. You opened your home waters to them, offered to guide Deb through her first global grant, and rallied Rotarians across The Bahamas to fund their next expedition. Your leadership as President of Rotary International continues in the reefs these young people will restore.
Together you are giving the next generation both the skills and the reason to protect the ocean. We are proud to stand with you, and we will help share this program with Rotary clubs around the world.
With deep gratitude and in Rotary friendship,
Steve Bender
Director, Western North America, Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group
President, Rotary Club of Newport Beach
Chairman, United States Green Chamber of Commerce
Founder and Chairman, Growing Green Leaders
What comes next
Coral Reef Guardians: taking Randolph’s model to the world
Rotary Reefs is working with Deb, her students and the Randolph clubs to turn this program into a Coral Reef Guardian project that any Rotary club can adopt. The RUHS Interact Club is being built as a cause-based club, with reef restoration as its purpose.
We will help Deb and her students follow our “In a Box” model: package everything that makes the Randolph program work so that another high school, Interact club or Rotary club can pick it up and run it in its own community.
Public speaking is part of the package. Sophia D’Angelo, a young Rotary leader who presented the 4-7-8-17 program on stage at Environmental Xperience 2026, will teach Deb’s students how to tell their story through our Students Teaching Students program. Students who can explain what they did on the reef can recruit the next class, win over donors and speak to Rotary clubs anywhere.
The divers are also invited to join Growing Green Leaders, a six month youth climate education and innovation challenge for the 2026 to 2027 school year across the United States, Canada and Mexico. High school teams make a short video, four minutes or less, about a climate solution in their community, mentored by local Rotary clubs and celebrated on Earth Day.
Photos
The RUHS Bahamas Coral Restoration Trip
Help the next class dive
Send Randolph’s students back to the reef
Rotary clubs
Partner with Randolph Sunrise Rotary, Randolph Rotary and Rotarians in The Bahamas on the global grant for student reef divers.
Interact and Rotaract
Connect with the new RUHS Interact Club and join the Rotary Reefs Students Teaching Students network.
Individuals
Every certification, flight and night on the research vessel is funded by donors. Contact Rotary Reefs to give.
With thanks
The people and partners behind the dive team
Rotary Reefs honors Deb Schaner and the students of Randolph Union High School for showing that you do not need to live near the ocean to protect it.
Rotary Reefs · Rotary Club of Newport Beach · Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group · steve@stevebender.net