New, diverse Rotary is welcoming women and new customs

Rain drizzles outside the Monarch Room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, but the mood among the members of the Rotary Club of Honolulu is bright and convivial. People hug and shake hands and call hello across tables as they settle into their chairs for lunch.

"The advent of women in Rotary has brought an entirely new dimension. Theorganization has broadened its base to reflect the community," said Linda coble, district Governor of Rotary International. Advertiser library photo

Henry Akina, general and artistic director of the Hawai‘i Opera Theatre, is the speaker today, and he has brought four of his performers to entertain the audience.

But first, Kitty Lagareta must conduct club business over the chatter.

One by one, members get "fined" for recognition in the media, for participating in a recent job shadowing program with 300 public and private high school students, for having a birthday, for just about anything.

The "fines" are actually donations. Rotary members decide where to direct their philanthropy, which makes everyone amenable to the good-natured, public ribbings. But these contributions toward scholarships and community projects are only the beginning of Rotary’s altruism, which sometimes get overshadowed by preconceptions about the group.

The nearly 100-year-old international club has a retrograde stereotype: older, established Caucasian males socializing together — exclusively.

Broadening base

But in reality, Rotary has always been about service, and now women (who were not admitted into the club until 1987) are leaders in the group. And the members’ faces reflect all ages, career stages and ethnicities. The barriers are crumbling.

"The advent of women in Rotary has brought an entirely new dimension," said Rotary International district governor Linda Coble. "The organization has broadened its base to reflect the community."

Lagareta, 46, chairwoman and CEO of Communications Pacific, mother of two and current president of the largest and oldest 400-member Rotary Club of Honolulu, said that her own initial perception of Rotary "probably put me off a little. And yet, when we came to the meetings, the men absolutely embraced us. Now a lot of women are really involved in the leadership of the clubs."

Rotary motto: Service above self Four-way test for everything Rotarians think, say and do: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? If you are interested in learning more about Rotary, visit www.rotaryd5000.org or call 263-8828.

"I’d always known Rotary to be a bunch of old men and their fathers," added Michele Harris, 37, a licensed general contractor, home inspector and one of the charter members of the Rotary Club of Honolulu Sunset, a club she believes represents the new Rotary. "From the outset it was a very diverse, different group. We have a multitude of cultural and religious backgrounds, and nearly equal gender membership."

Rotary has never been politically or religiously oriented, but one component of Harris’ club that pleases her is the alternative to the traditional invocation.

"Every club has its own way of starting a meeting," she said. "We do a flag pledge. But we don’t do a religious blessing because it’s unsuitable to our club. We may have a moment of silence for someone who’s ill or for an international tragedy."

Such diversity also means better resources for projects.

"People make a big mistake if they think we’re just a Tuesday lunch group," Lagareta said. "We’re a pretty mighty team when we roll up our sleeves and go to work."

Rotary members, who represent most professions, don’t just write checks. "We have a lot of very specialized skills; we can look at something and actually do it," Lagareta said. This includes anything from cleaning streams in Manoa to reconfiguring someone’s home for wheelchair use.

Variety of projects

Before embarking on any long-term project, members conduct a needs assessment. Often Rotary will start from scratch, but sometimes it will affiliate with groups who are already involved so both parties can more efficiently measure progress. Occasionally, O‘ahu clubs work together, but most often they foster their own projects.

Internationally, Rotary started Rotoplast, a program that offers plastic surgery to people with congenital defects in developing countries.

In Hawai‘i, Rotarians have supplied books to every newborn in the state to promote literacy; they have also cleaned, repaired, painted and provided recreational equipment in parks; they have fostered drug-free environments schools. The list goes on. And every member has his or her personal passion.

"I think kids voting has been my favorite," Harris said. Rotary set up separate polling booths during the recent election, and allowed kids the opportunity to vote. "It was wonderful to see the amount of reverence for the process. And we had parents who came in to vote because of the kids voting. This touched so many people."

But nothing that Rotary has done touched quite as many people as its efforts to eradicate polio worldwide by 2005. To date, Rotary International has contributed manpower and $400 million toward immunization days in the 16-year-old PolioPlus campaign.

Although polio has been largely eliminated from the United States (with the help of other charitable groups, including Easter Seals), Rotary’s endeavors have focused on Third World countries.

The result? More than one billion children have been immunized. In partnership with UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a recent effort in India involved 500,000 outposts, where Rotarians helped vaccinate 152 million children in one day.

Hal Darcey, general contractor and district governor-elect, was one of the 17 Rotarians from Hawai‘i who traveled to Ghana last October, where they inoculated 3 million children as part of the PolioPlus campaign.

With medical practitioners and their rotarian counterparts in Ghana, they walked door to door in each village, carrying the vaccine in coolers. Darcey said that adults afflicted with polio were everywhere, which made their mission even more profound.

"It was stunning to see that many cases of people with crippled limbs," he said. "We had more than one occasion where people thanked us for saving their children. The emotion was startling. I’ve been all over the world, but without question, this was the best $3,000 I ever spent."

Since its inception in 1905, Rotary’s ranks have swelled to 1.2 million members in nearly 30,000 clubs throughout 163 countries. It started when an attorney Paul Harris decided that he wanted to meet people and assemble resources for good deeds, and began the club by inviting one person from each profession to join. He decided meetings would rotate from house to house. Hence, the name Rotary.

District 5000 includes 38 clubs throughout the Hawaiian Islands, with the Rotary Club of Volcano the most recent addition.

‘I don’t need plaques’

Everybody who joins wants to share time and money; it’s part of the requirement for membership. Some, however, disagree with the exact manner in which that occurs: Harris said that for a club dedicated to doing good deeds quietly, she thinks it spends too much energy recognizing members for their donations.

"You want to continue giving because it feels good, not because you’ll get a pin," she said. "I’m done with that. I don’t need plaques and ribbons and pins."

But something on which most members agree is that one of Rotary’s greatest assets (aside from its impressive service record) is the fellowship between members. "I love the camaraderie," Harris said. "I’ve renewed old friendships and made new friends."

Potential members do not just walk in the door and sign up. There is a commitment to meet weekly, and to contribute money and energy.

But for Rotarians, the opportunity to meet people — while they accomplish something profound — is worth every bit of effort.

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