Rotary Facts

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.

Rotary is the world's first service club. The first Rotary club was founded in Chicago, Illinois, USA on February 23, 1905

Rotary is some 1.2 million service-minded men and women belonging to more than 28,000 Rotary clubs in virtually every nation in the world.

Rotarians meet weekly for fellowship and interesting and informative programs dealing with topics of local and global importance. Membership reflects a wide cross-section of community representation.

Rotarians plan and carry out a remarkable variety of humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs that touch people's lives in their local communities and our world community.

Rotary is The Rotary Foundation, which each year provides some US $90 million for international scholarships, cultural exchanges, and humanitarian projects large and small the improve the quality of life for millions of people. Rotary is widely regarded as the world's largest provider of international educational scholarships.

What is the 2008-2009 theme?
Each new Rotary year, July 1st, the incoming President of Rotary International chooses a theme that will represent his focus for the coming year.

This year the theme selected by D. K. Lee of South Korea, is “Make Dreams Real”. You can see in the image an adult in red, representing warmth and safety, holding a child in blue, representing cold and distress! The theme “Make Dreams Real” is meant to focus Rotarians worldwide on the needs of distressed and endangered children worldwide. President DK Lee wants his year in office to make a significant change in the horrendous rate of child mortality worldwide – currently 3,000 children under 10 die from preventable causes every day! We Rotarians in Oswego join with Rotary President D. K. Lee in this effort!