What Is Rotary?

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 What is Rotary?

Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 166 countries. Rotary clubs meet weekly, are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races and creeds. The Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary Club has exemplified the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self" since its incorporation over 80 years ago.

Supporting Our Community

Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotarians worked behind the scenes on the Morrisville bi-centennial celebration in 2004, raising funds for the Robert Morris statue and the musical, "The Man Who Bought a Country". They have helped the Morrisville Historic Society make improvements at Summerseat and have worked on improvements to the home of Actors Net, the Heritage Center. 

Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotarians can be found conducting the Annual Easter Egg Hunt in Morrisville's Williamson park (a 70 year tradition), selling hotdogs at the Morrisville Labor Day Family Picnic and other local events. They can be found sponsoring Carnivals and other venues to raise funds for the club's many service projects and charitable donations.

You can find them ringing Salvation Army bells at Christmas, supporting the Ivins House and the agencies occupying the offices, supplying pumpkins for the YMCA annual Halloween program, helping the "Y" in its Healthy Kids program and serving food at the Trenton Food Kitchen.

You also will find them seeking better ways to serve, including the sponsorship of a new Morrisville Rotaract and Friends organization. It will be made up of active Morrisville professionals and business persons who are interested in service projects that will specifically enhance the quality of life in Morrisville. Members of this organization will have the benefits of an affiliation with Rotary but without the requirements to attend meetings or to pay dues, other than as the Rotaract and Friends organization chooses to impose on  itself.

Numerous community service and charitable organizations benefit from the fundraising efforts of the Morrisvile-Yardley Area Rotary.

Supporting Our Youth

Supporting our youth is a high priority in Rotary. Student Service is recognized through awards to deserving High School students. Students are sponsored by the club to attend a weeklong youth leadership training program in the Poconos. The club has contributed to the Pennsbury Scholarship Foundation. Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotarians also can be found reading the "I Like Me" books to children in the Morrisville public and parochial schools, to support literacy and reading. The book is personalized for each participating child and is provided free by the club. And for third graders in the Morrisville schools the club gives dictionaries.

A Leadership Acadmey is beng established in the Morrisville High School to introduce interested students to leaders thoroughout the community for the purpose of examining various leadership styles and to practice the application of these styles.

The club makes a point of annually recoginizing the leadership of the area Scouting organizations for their contributions to the development of our youth.

Supporting Our World

Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotarians do not limit their involvement to the local community, however. The club and its members continue to make substantial contributions to and participate in Rotaplast, a program that sends volunteer surgeons and staff to remote parts of the world to correct cleft palates and lips. Members also support and have participated in the Wheelchair Foundation, which provides wheelchairs specially designed for rough rural terrain at no charge to the poor and crippled around the world. And they support ShelterBox which provides emergency shelters and supplies for disaster areas worldwide. And the club is in the process of partnering with a club in Lima, Puru to provide water filtration to families in remote areas of Peru. The club members continue to generously support the Rotary Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through thousands of international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. One of the major programs is Polio  Plus, a worldwide, $500 million effort that is eradicating polio from the face of the earth. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants. Most of the club members are Paul Harris Fellows, which means that each one has donated $1000 or more to the Foundation in his or her name or the name of a family member.

Getting Involved

The regular weekly meetings of the Morrisville-Yardley Area Rotary are at Michael's Restaurant, starting at 6:15 PM for dinner and fellowship and to hear an interesting and informative speaker or a lively discussion about local, District and International programs and projects. Those interested in learning more about Rotary or the new Morrisville Rotaract and Friends organization are cordially invited to contact Andy Thompson at 215-826-1599, or at andythompson@verizon.net.   

The Object of Rotary

The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

High ethical standards in business and profession; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignity of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business and community life;

The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

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Find out more about Rotary by visiting the Rotary International web site.