About Rotary

Evolution of the Rotary Wheel

Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. In nearly 170 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 Rotary clubs.

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of each community's business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.

The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development. The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.

Although Rotary clubs develop autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In 1985 we started the Polio Plus Program that has raised 600 million dollars to immunize 2 billion children in 122 countries. In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.

The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since 1905, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.6 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.

Taken from the Rotary International web site at http://www.rotary.org/aboutrotary/index.html