Page 3 - District Interactive Newsletter Feb 2017
P. 3
FOUNDATION for Rotary. Carrying on, as we are, a
miscellaneous community service, it seems
Foundation at 100 eminently proper that we should accept
endowments or the purpose of doing good in the
This year is the centenary of the Rotary world, in charitable, educational or other avenues
Foundation, Rotary’s one and only charity, and of community progress; or such funds could be
several Rotary Clubs in the District are celebrating well used for extension work. I know of no more
the event, with Torquay running a Black Tie Gala commendable use for the vast millions possessed
Evening at the Palace Hotel, and Totnes, which is by men in this country than that certain sums
marking the 100 years with a brass band evening might be endowed to Rotary for the purpose of
at the King Edward VI College in the town. establishment Rotary clubs in all the nations of
the world.”
Back in 1917, Rotary International President Arch
Klumph, of Atlanta, Georgia, donated $26.50 to Now the fund stands at more than $1billion and,
start it off. The official creation day was June 18. since its inception, it has supported humanitarian
However, the charity wasn’t fully endorsed until programmes around the world.
10 years later, at an international meeting in
Belgium in 1927. These days, it shows many faces internationally:
it has helped a young set of parents in
In his original address, Arch Klumph said: ”We Afghanistan with a life-saving immunisation of
have called the attention of the organisation this their five-month old-son; to North Koreans, it was
year to the possibility of a future endowment fund an ambulance; to a Malaysian women with seven
children, it was a loan to start a sewing business
