“Whatever Rotary may mean to us, to the world it will be known by the results it achieves.” —Paul P. Harris
In the beginning, Rotary came from a lonely man’s hunger for friendship and fellowship. Today this 1.2 million-member organization was build on his vision. Paul P. Harris, a 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. Our ongoing commitment. Rotarians have not only been present for major events in history—we’ve been a part of them. From the beginning, three key traits have remained strong throughout Rotary: We’re truly international. Only 16 years after being founded, Rotary had clubs on six continents. Today we’re working together from around the globe both digitally and in-person to solve some of our world’s most challenging problems. Our commitment to service is ongoing. We began our fight against polio in 1979 with a project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines. Polio does still exist today, although polio cases have decreased by over 99.9 percent since the
1980s, when the world saw about 1,000 cases per day. There were only 37 cases a reported in 2016. This reduction is the result of the global effort to eradicate the disease. We persevere in tough times. During WWII, Rotary clubs in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Japan were forced to disband. Despite the risks, many continued to meet informally and following the war’s end, Rotary members joined together to rebuild their clubs and their countries.
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