A Brief
History of Rotary
The world's first service club, the Rotary Club
of Chicago, Illinois, USA, was formed on 23 February 1905 by
Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional
club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns
of his youth. The name "Rotary" derived from the early
practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.
Rotary's popularity spread throughout the United States in
the decade that followed; clubs were chartered from San Francisco
to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents,
and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a
year later.
As Rotary grew, its mission
expanded beyond serving the professional and social interests of
club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing
their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's
dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto:
Service Above Self. Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics,
called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into hundreds of
languages.
During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly
involved in promoting international understanding. In 1945,
49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations
Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN
conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting
the United Nations in Rotary publications. Rotary International's
relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London
Rotary conference that promoted international cultural and educational
exchanges. Attended by ministers of education and observers
from around the world, and chaired by a past president of RI,
the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO
in 1946.
An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing
good in the world," became a not-for-profit corporation
known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul
Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in
his honor, totaling US$2 million, launched the Foundation's
first program - graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial
Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation
total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range
of humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable
Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding
throughout the world.
In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all
of the world's children against polio. Working in partnership
with nongovernmental organizations and national governments
thorough its PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector
contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians
have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers
and have immunized more than one billion children worldwide.
By the 2005 target date for certification of a polio-free world,
Rotary will have contributed half a billion dollars to the cause.
As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to
meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort
to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy,
world hunger, and children at risk. The organization admitted women
for the first time (worldwide) in 1989 and claims more than 145,000
women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall
and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed
or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Today,
1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 32,000 Rotary clubs in more
than 200 countries and geographical areas.
For additional information or to join Rotary
please contact the Membership Chair
Ron Green at (909) 336-5052 or
eMail Ron at: RarelyRong@aol.com
