Rotary is an opportunity to build lifelong friendships and experience the personal fulfillment of providing volunteer service to others.

An organization of business and professional leaders, Rotary provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace throughout the world.

The world’s first service club, Rotary began with the formation of the Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, on 23 February 1905. The club was started by a young lawyer, Paul P. Harris, and three of his friends. He wished to recapture the friendly spirit he had felt among business people in the small town where he had grown up. Their weekly meetings “rotated” among their offices, providing the new service club with its name.

Today, as Rotary International, the organization flourishes in 163 countries with some 31,000 clubs and 1.2 million men and women members, providing community service in virtually every nation in the world.

To learn more, take a look at the ABC's of Rotary.