About Rotary - What Is Rotary?

Reasons I joined Rotary

 I wanted to give something back to the community. I wanted to get involved in an organization with no overhead, so that fundraising efforts go straight to the heart of where it is needed. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, that is spread throughout the world.  It is a feeling of family, friendship and commitment to a common goal. I can go anywhere in the world and know that I have a friend to call, a place to stay, someone to lean on. Being a Milford Rotarian is a feeling of accomplishment, to work with people that are the best in the community and to help those in need in the community. 

Gina Delucca  

DeForest Smith on Milford Rotary:

“Rotary promotes fellowship on a local basis and strives to improve goodwill, health, and living conditions throughout the world.

“Personally, Rotary’s Youth Exchange program has made a substantial impact on my family. During high school, one of my daughters spent a summer with a Rotary host family in France and we reciprocated by hosting a French student the following two summers.  These friendships and experiences have proved invaluable and continue to this day.  This type of Rotary program helps to define a shrinking world and the participants acquire an appreciation of different cultures, customs and countries. 

Rotary is truly a people-to-people worldwide organization. Other programs such as Rotary Scholarships (which provide for students from any country to study anywhere in the world), Group Study Exchange, and eradicating world polio with Rotary’s Polio Plus are only a portion of the many, many programs sponsored by Rotary.  Rotary is truly the only organization that can cross borders in any country and establish programs that individual countries cannot accomplish.”

DeForest W. (Frosty) Smith, CCIM, SIOR

George J. Smith & Son Realtors  

"First and foremost, Rotary is a lot of fun.  I've gotten to know and become close to a terrific group of people from the community.  All of us working together are able to accomplish worthwhile projects both in our local community and, through Rotary International, around the world.   It's a wonderful feeling to do some good in the world, and have fun while doing it."

Bob Macklin
President & CEO
The Milford Bank  

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

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the 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 the 1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a polio-free world, the PolioPlus program will have contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.

Find out more about Rotary by visiting the Rotary International web site.

Information on this page came from:

The About Rotary and the RI Programs pages on the Rotary International web site