This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.
STATE COLLEGE — In October 1924, a group of State College professionals got together to establish the State College Rotary Club, joining a relatively young national organization that had been founded in Chicago in 1905 with the focus of “encouraging community connections based on friendship and service.”
While it has certainly evolved, friendship and service have remained at the heart of the State College Rotary Club, leading it to have a profound positive impact on the local community for the last 100 years. The organization will commemorate this milestone anniversary with a celebration at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
CHANGING WITH THE TIMES
Ron Hodes has been a member of State College Rotary since 1978 and is the club’s longest-tenured current member — a distinction which he sadly earned upon the passing of Dr. Charles Rohrbeck earlier this year.
Hodes recalls a time when women were excluded from membership and when Rotary wanted just one member from each profession.
“When I joined the club, you had to come in and be sponsored, and you had to represent a category — for example, schoolteacher, lawyer, doctor, banker. That got pretty limiting, so at that time they were being creative. They would say banker/mortgages, or banker/lender. They found ways to get people in,” Hodes said.
Hodes was president of the club in 1987, when the United State Supreme Court ruled that women could not be excluded from membership in Rotary Clubs.
“Our first female member was Mary Dunkle, a local insurance business owner, and she became the first woman president of our club,” Hodes said. “I don’t think we would have made 100 years without women being in our club.”
It was around that same time that the club, which held (and still holds) its meetings in the evenings, had grown large enough to split. A new Downtown State College Rotary Club, which meets over the lunch hour, was the result. The State College Sunrise Rotary Club, which meets for breakfast, was established in 2006.
IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY
State College Rotary annually provides local nonprofits with $2,000 of district-funded grant money and an additional $2,000 to $5,000 from other donations, according to treasurer Carrie Ryan, who said the other two clubs also contribute similarly.
Some of Rotary’s local signature projects include State College Rotary Club’s popular annual auction held at the Philatelic building each May; the Dictionary Project, which provides student dictionaries for third-graders in local elementary schools; Santa’s Mailbox, which sits outside of The Corner Room each holiday season and is sponsored by the Sunrise Rotary Club; and the annual Ice Cream Fest held by Downtown Rotary Club each August.
“Service Above Self” is the Rotary motto, and State College Rotarians serve the community in myriad other ways, including maintaining Little Free Libraries in local parks, serving on the Green Crew for Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, packing care packages for A Soldier’s Hands and The Jared Project and participating in United Way’s Day of Caring.
State College Rotary also started a key fundraiser for Centre Volunteers in Medicine: Battle of the Minds, a trivia-night gala affair that has raised over $1.6 million over the past 16 years. This year’s event is slated for Monday, Oct. 21, at the Penn Stater.
Rotary places an emphasis on youth development, as well. They sponsor local scouting organizations and State College Area High School’s Interact Community Service Club, send local youth to the national Rotary Youth Leadership Awards program, hold essay contests for high school students and host and sponsor students involved in Rotary’s International Youth Exchange program.
Each of the local clubs also support Rotary International’s global efforts of eradicating polio, promoting peace and supplying clean water.
Even as its members work to make the community and the world a better place, Rotary does not lose sight of the “friendship” component of its founding.
“We have a lot of fun, and enjoy a lot of camaraderie, too, as we try to help others who need our help,” Hones said.
Each of the three clubs welcomes new members.
State College Rotary Club meets at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at Country Inn & Suites on East College Avenue.
Downtown Rotary Club meets on Thursdays at noon at the Ramada Inn on South Atherton Street. Sunrise Rotary meets on Wednesday mornings at 7:15 at the Centre LifeLink facility on Puddintown Road.
The Tuesday, Oct. 8, celebration will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and will feature various speakers, slideshow presentations, food provided by Hoag’s Catering and beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages.
Tickets are $50 and must be reserved by Tuesday, Oct. 1, at statecollegerotary.org under the “Upcoming Events” tab.
