Rotarians fete foreign diplomats, Washington, D.C., February 24, 1937, On the left and right are the presidents of two local Rotary clubs, along with the ambassadors of Russia, Italy and Germany.
The Rotarians are mindblowing. If you're picturing a bunch of business people eating breakfast or lunch together in a banquet room, networking and talking about doing some do-gooder stuff for their community—that's an accurate picture. What's missing is the scope of the Rotarians' do-goodery—which is vast, as you will learn below. And maybe also the depth of the comaraderie, which I found touching in my brief brush.
I've been to a handful of Rotary Club gatherings, all in San Jose in the company of Dan Pulcrano, publisher/editor of Metro Silicon Valley, where I worked as news editor. The Rotary experience surprised me. I was surprised at one breakfast when Larry Stone, then and now the quick-witted Santa Clara County tax assessor and then-Rotary president, came to the podium amid a gale of boos. (Even in deep blue San Jose, businesspeople do not cheer for the tax collector.) (Maybe you had to be there.)
Nancy Pelosi addressed a Rotary luncheon I attended in 2009, where she did a Q&A with Rep. Zoe Lofgren while Tea Party protesters carried signs decrying Obamacare on the street below. The Rotarians—a presumably rather conservative bunch—gave these powerful, liberal women a warm welcome.
At another event, a young woman who had received a Rotary scholarship to spend a year abroad stepped up to thank her benefactors. She tearfully told them they had blessed her with a life-changing experience—and detailed the ways that she had grown.
It makes sense that the organization known offically as Rotary International would focus its charitable giving on programs that give American kids opportunities to see the world—I hadn't known that. Again, as you will see, that is barely the tip of the iceberg of good that this organization does.
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