Club History

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.

The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The name "Rotary" derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.

Rotary's popularity spread throughout the United States in the decade that followed; clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later.

The Rotary Club of Seminole was chartered in 1962 and currently has 56 members. The Object of Rotary Club of Seminole 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 professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying 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 a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service