The Rotary Foundation's Beginning

Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of November 16, 2009

The Rotary Foundation's Beginning

**************




Some magnificent projects grow from very small seeds. The Rotary Foundation had that sort of modest beginning.



In 1917, RI President Arch Klumph told the delegates to the Atlanta Convention that “it seems eminently proper that we should accept endowments for the purpose of doing good in the world.” The response was polite and favourable, but the fund was slow to materialize.

A year later, the “Rotary Endowment Fund,” as it was first labelled, received its first contribution of US $26.50 from the Rotary Club of Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A., which was the balance of the Kansas City Convention account following the 1918 annual meeting. Additional small amounts were annually contributed, but after six years, it is reported that the endowment fund had only reached US $700.

A decade later, The Rotary Foundation was formally established at the 1928 Minneapolis Convention. In the next four years, the Foundation fund grew to US $50,000. In 1937, a US $2 million goal was announced for The Rotary Foundation, but these plans were cut short and abandoned with the outbreak of World War II.

In 1947, upon the death of Paul Harris, a new era opened for The Rotar Foundation as memorial gifts poured in to honour the founder of Rotary. From that time, The Rotary Foundation has been achieving its noble objective of furthering “understanding and friendly relations between peoples of different nations.”

By 1954, the Foundation received for the first time a half million dollars in contributions in a single year, and in 1965, a million dollars was received.

It is staggering to imagine that from those humble beginnings, The Rotary Foundation is now receiving more than US $65 million each year for educational and humanitarian work around the world.

Source: The ABCs of Rotary

***************

The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

**************

Below, Frank Devlyn, second from right -- Rotary International President 2000-01 and Chairman, The Rotary Foundation 2005-06 -- visits the gravesite of Arch Klumph in Cleveland, Ohio.

In November of 2007, PRIP Devlyn journeyed to Cleveland, Ohio, USA, to participate in a variety of Rotary club and Rotary Foundation events.

While, there, he and PRID T.D. Griley had the opportunity to visit the grave site of the Father of the Rotary Foundation, PRIP Arch Klumph.

Others in the photo are unidentified.