Ariane Carriere, Membership chair
Continuing our series on Avenues of Service, today we look at Community Service:
Community service in Rotary essentially relates to service performed in the local community of a Rotary club. Community service is often the most popular activity in a club, perhaps in part because it is easier for club members to
have a personal connection with beneficiaries of projects through community service than is the case, say, through international service projects. Rotarians also see the needs in their communities, and often want to respond.
Rotary International has published a guide to help Rotarians in their community service (the title of the guide is Communities in Action: A Guide to Effective Projects). In practice, the types of activities implemented by clubs vary
greatly from one club to the next, and even within clubs, especially large ones.
Just as one example, some of the community service activities of the Rotary Club of Washington, DC, can be mentioned. This is a large club founded more than century ago with close to 170 members. In part because members have a variety of interests, many different community service activities are proposed to the membership. Under the dictionary project, every third grader in public and charter schools receives a
dictionary. Club members go to elementary schools to distribute the dictionaries. A second activity is the Grate Patrol, whereby members help distribute food to the homeless twice a month as part of a Salvation Army Homeless Outreach Program. A third project is the trees for the Capital, which consists in planting
twice a year cherry trees in partnership near some of the monuments in DC and
especially near the Jefferson Memorial with the National Park Service.
A fourth project that has been running for decades is the Walter Reed Bingo whereby club members organize bingo sessions with prices for wounded veterans receiving care. Still another activity is the career fair held each year with
a handful of local high schools. Separately, a group of club members regularly tutors elementary school students in mathematics at another school. And until recently, club members participated in the annual school beautification project held in August by the school district (the district since discontinued the event). The club also has a large foundation with an endowment of $7 million. The
foundation awards community service grants to local nonprofits every year, and quite a few members serve in the committee that decides on those awards.
In addition, every year the Rotary Club of Washington, DC, typically organizes other community service projects specific to that year. For example, for its Centennial, the club sponsored the construction of a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified passive energy house with the
District of Columbia chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Several hands-on construction workshops at the site were held apart from providing funding for the house. And most recently, the club launched a new annual fundraiser in the form of a duck race. Families can purchase tickets for a race held in April on the Anacostia River with rubber ducks – providing great family fund.
While the community service offering of the Rotary Club of Washington, DC may be especially board given the size of the club’s membership, many clubs organize and/or participate in a wide range of community service activities. Many clubs also are known in their community for a flagship event that they organize every year. This is often a fundraiser that is held in order to be able to provide
community grants to local nonprofits. Our club generally helps other clubs with their fundraisers rather than initiate our own. We've sold calendars, roses, and the mums campaigns will start soon.
