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WE ARE NEIGHBORS, COMMUNITY LEADERS, AND GLOBAL CITIZENS

UNITING FOR THE COMMON GOOD

“WHATEVER ROTARY MAY MEAN TO US, TO THE WORLD

IT WILL BE KNOWN BY THE RESULTS IT ACHIEVES.” —PAUL P. HARRIS

 

Our 1.2 million-member organization started with the vision of one man—Paul P. Harris. The Chicago attorney formed one of the world’s first service organizations, the Rotary Club of Chicago, on 23 February 1905 as a place where professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful, lifelong friendships. Rotary’s name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings among the offices of each member.

Learn more about Rotary

Viral diseases have been debilitating, increased poverty, and caused fear throughout human history.

Several years ago Rotary International decided it would focus its organization, fundraising, and people towards freeing millions of children and their families from a disease that was steeling their children’s lives and debilitating the survivors.

Just a little more than 25 years ago, polio was endemic to 125 countries.  Each year the disease would paralyze or kill up to 350,000 people, mostly children.  Due to the drive, energy, and commitment behind governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, medical communities, and countless volunteers, the disease is only in three countries:  Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. 

In 2012, only 215 people became infected with polio globally. Today the numbers are shrinking even more.

NOTABLE ROTARIANS

Rotarians are your neighbors, your community leaders and some of the world’s greatest history-makers: 

  • Warren G. Harding, U.S. president

  • Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer

  • Dr. Charles H. Mayo, co-founder of Mayo Clinic

  • Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor of the wireless radio and Nobel laureate

  • Thomas Mann, German novelist and Nobel laureate

  • Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and Nobel laureate

  • Admiral Richard E. Byrd, American explorer

  • Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of Czechoslovakia

  • H.E. Soleiman Frangieh, president of Lebanon

  • Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator

  • Manny Pacquaio, Filipino world-champion boxer and congressman

  • Richard Lugar, U.S. senator

  • Frank Borman, American astronaut

  • Edgar A. Guest, American poet and journalist

  • Sir Harry Lauder, Scottish entertainer

  • Franz Lehar, Austrian composer

  • Lennart Nilsson, Swedish photographer

  • James Cash Penney, founder of JC Penney Co.

  • Carlos Romulo, UN General Assembly president

  • Sigmund Sternberg, English businessman and philanthropist

Club Assembly Meeting COUNTDOWN

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