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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", which
has been translated
into hundreds of
languages.
During and after
World War II,
Rotarians became
increasingly
involved in
promoting
international
understanding. A
Rotary conference
held in London in
1942 planted the
seeds for the
development of the
UNESCO, and numerous
Rotarians have
served as
consultants to the
United Nations.
An endowment fund,
set up by Rotarians
in 1917 for "doing
good in the world,"
became a non-profit
organization 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$2million,
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
NGO's
(non-governmental
organizations) and
national governments
through its Polio
Plus program, Rotary
is the largest
private-sector
contributor to the
global polio
eradication
campaign. Rotarians
have mobilized
hundreds of
thousands of Polio
Plus volunteers and
have immunized more
than one billion
children worldwide.
Rotary has now
contributed half a
billion dollars
towards creating a
polio-free world.
At 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
problems,
illiteracy, world
hunger and women and
children at risk.
The organization
admitted women for
the first time in
1989 and today
claims more than
90,000 women
members. 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 30,000 Rotary
clubs in more than
160 countries.
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