Rotary is a world fellowship of international business and professional people who accept the ideal of SERVICE as a worthy enterprise and the basis for success and happiness in their business and community life. Rotarians are also strongly committed to an ethical code of conduct referred to as the “Four Way Test”.
Paul Harris
Rotary was organized in Chicago on February 23, 1905, by a young, somewhat lonely attorney, Paul Harris. That first group met in rotation in the charter members’ offices: thus the name ROTARY. Three (3) years later the second Rotary group was founded in San Francisco. By 1910, there were sixteen (16) clubs in the United States. That same year, the first club outside the United States was organized in Winnipeg, Canada, and in 1912, Rotary International was formed with Paul Harris serving as the first International President. Evanston, Illinois is now the headquarter location for Rotary International. Today there are over 32,000 Clubs in 168 countries with about 1.5 million individual Rotarians.
Rotary is a service organization. The Object of Rotary is to “encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise.” Since 1910, the Rotary Motto has been “Service Above Self.” and is widely practiced by caring Rotarians around the world. It is rather self-explanatory as is another well known and often used Rotary motto, “He Profits Most Who Serves Best”.
Rotary strives to achieve it’s “service” objective through activities in five primary areas. These are often referred to as the “Avenues of Service”.