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     About Rotary

The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed in1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices. Today Rotary International is a global service organization with more than 1,200,000 members in over 32,000 clubs in 200+ countries.  Members are local leaders in business, government, professions and the arts. Rotarians provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

Rotary International recognized that the successful eradification of Polio in the industrialized west was not being matched in the developing world.  beginning in the 1980's, Rotary committed to the elimination of the disease in all countries. Through its Polio Plus program, major gains have been made in the past two decades in the global fight against polio:

• In the 1980s, 1,000 children were infected by the disease every day in 125 countries. Today, polio cases have declined by 99 percent, with fewer than two thousand cases reported in 2006.
• Two billion children have been immunized, five million have been spared disability, and over 250,000 deaths from polio have been prevented.

Rotary clubs participate in a host of service and exchange programs, among them:

• Rotary Friendship Exchange encourages Rotarians and their families to make reciprocal visits to other countries, staying in each other’s homes and learning about different cultures firsthand.
• Rotary Volunteers allows Rotarians and other skilled professionals to offer their services and experience to local and international humanitarian projects.
• Rotary Youth Exchange offers students ages 15-19 the chance to travel abroad for cultural exchanges of one week to a full academic year. Rotary clubs and districts sponsor and host about 9,000 Youth Exchange students a year.
• Rotary Youth Leadership Awards are seminars sponsored by clubs and districts to encourage and recognize the leadership abilities of youth and young adults ages 14-30.
• World Community Service allows Rotary clubs and districts from at least two countries to implement community service projects together.

For more information about Rotary International, please visit the organization's website at www.rotary.org.