Telling kids about Rotary

My grandson Emmett is eleven. He doesn’t really know what Rotary actually is. I've been a member for twenty-five years, and my father was a member when I was just a kid. I realized most of my answers would bore him to sleep. Committees. Districts. Grants. Membership. Process. blah, blah, blah.

So I re-thought how to explain it. Here's what I’d say.

Buddy, a long time ago — 1905 — a man named Paul Harris lived in Chicago. The city was enormous and getting bigger every day. Nobody knew anybody. You could get cheated by a stranger and never see him again.

Paul wanted one thing. A room full of people he could trust.

So he built one.

That room became Rotary. And it works because of three rules so simple you already understand them from playing sports.

Rule one: only good people get in. You can't just walk into Rotary. You have to be invited. Another member has to stand up and say, "I know this person. They're honest, and they're good at what they do." So when you sit down at a Rotary table, you already know something about everyone there — they can be trusted. It's like a team where every player was picked on purpose. Nobody just wandered in.

Rule two: we hold ourselves to a high standard. Before we say or do something, we ask four questions. Is it the truth? Is it fair to everyone? Will it build friendship? Will it help everyone involved? Nobody makes us ask them. It's a promise we make about who we are. You know how a trophy you earned means everything, and a trophy everyone gets means nothing? Same idea.

Rule three: your skills get put to work. Most grown-ups are really good at something. Building. Fixing. Teaching. Healing. But a lot of them have no place to use those skills to help people. Rotary is that place. A dentist doesn't just give money — she fixes teeth for kids who can't afford a dentist. A builder doesn't just donate — he builds the clinic. In Rotary, you don't just give. You do.

Then I told him the part that still gives me chills after a quarter century.

The same people who flip pancakes at our Swallows Day Parade breakfast helped push a disease called polio off almost the entire planet. The disease both of your aunts had when they were kids.

Same people. Same Wednesdays. No app did that. No famous person did that. Thousands of small clubs full of trusted people did that.