A Brief History of Rotary

Rotary founder Paul P. Harris. Chicago, 1911.

The world’s first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to establish a professional club for networking among fellow businessmen. 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 and by 1921 Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents.

As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional 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 principle is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self.

In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world’s children against polio. Working in partnership with national governments and nongovernmental organizations thorough its PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized more than one billion children worldwide. Os of the 2005 target date for certification of a polio-free world, Rotary has contributed more than halfa billion dollars to this cause.

The original charter for the Rotary Club of Cloverdale was issued by Rotary International in 1926 and it was designated as Club No. 375. Members of the Rotary Club Cloverdale number 45.

Today, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 30,000 Rotary clubs in more than 160 countries.