Rotary Club of Custer
About Our Club
WELCOME TO OUR ROTARY WEBSITE.
Meets Mondays at Noon at the Custer Senior Center 538 Mt. Rushmore Road
Custer Rotary Club Custer, S.D.
Custer Rotary Club
2021-2022
Board of Directors
John Carson-----------------President
Marguerite Cullum ---------Past President
Rob McWhorter ----------Secretary
Mike Chase-------------------Treasurer
---------------President Elect
-------------President Nominee
---------------------Director
Karen Kraus-------------------Director
For Information
Contact:
Verl Scheibe - 673-4690
Mike Chase --- 673-4461
Or any club member
A Brief History of Rotary
The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.
Rotary's popularity spread, and within a decade, clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York to Winnipeg, Canada. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents. The organization adopted the Rotary International name a year later.
As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving club members' professional and social interests. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its motto: Service Above Self.
By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members. The organization's distinguished reputation attracted presidents, prime ministers, and a host of other luminaries to its ranks - among them author Thomas Mann, diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, and composer Jean Sibelius
The Rotary Foundation
Rotarians have mobilized by the hundreds of thousands to ensure that children are immunized against this crippling disease and that surveillance is strong, despite the poor infrastructure, extreme poverty, and civil strife of many countries. Since the Polio Plus program’s inception in 1985, ( when there were 350,000 polio cases in 125 countries) more than two billion children have received oral polio vaccine. To date, 211 countries, territories, and areas around the world are polio-free, and 134 of these have been certified. In this last year (2012) there were 205 cases reported world wide (compared to 650 in 2011). Rotarians have contributed nearly 1 billion dollars to eradicate this deadly disease. There are currently only three countries not considered polio free– Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan. As of 12 July 2017 there have been 7 cases of Wild Polio Virus!!! We are getting closer to 0 Polio Cases!!
The Rotary Foundation transforms your gifts that change lives both close to home and around the world. As the charitable arm of Rotary, we tap into a global network of Rotarians who invest their time, money, and expertise into our priorities such as eradicating polio, and promoting peace. Foundation Grants empower Rotarians to approach challenges such as poverty, illiteracy, and malnutrition, and sustainable solutions that leave a lasting impact.
A strong financial oversight, a strong stellar charity rating, and a unique funding model mean we make the very most of your contribution.
District Grants fund smaller short term activities that address needs in your community and communities world wide. Each District get to choose which projects it will fund with these
Global Grants support large international activities that have sustainable, measurable outcomes in one or more of our areas of focus. Rotarians create their own projects and carry them out. We accept and review projects as they arrive.
Packaged Grants are designed by Rotary and our strategic partners. They fund projects similar to those for Global Grants, but the work of the general designing of the framework has already been done.
Grant activities include Humanitarian Projects, address community needs by providing sustainable, measurable outcomes in the benefiting community.
Scholarship Funds, Clubs and districts can create their own fund in an area of focus.
Vocational Training Teams, are professional teams traveling abroad either to teach local professionals about a particular field, or to learn more about their own.
Rotary World Peace Fellowships. Each year, up to 60 fellows are sponsored to study at one of the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution for a master’s-level degree.
Rotary Grants for University Teachers are awarded to faculty members to teach in a developing nation for 3 to 10 months.
*In addition, a prospective member must either live or work within the territorial limits of the club. A person whose business and residence are in a community not served by Rotary may be considered for membership by a club in an immediately adjacent community.
Becoming a Rotarian
Membership is vital to a Rotary club's operations, and an important component of club service is to enlarge the club with enthusiastic new members.
*Prospective members must actively hold, or be retired from, a professional, proprietary, executive or managerial position.
*They must have the desire and ability to serve and to meet the club's attendance requirements for its weekly meetings.
What is Rotary?
Rotary International is a volunteer organization of business and professional leaders who provide humanitarian service, and help to build goodwill and peace in the world. There are approximately 1.2 million Rotary club members belonging to 33,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.
What is the purpose of Rotary?
Rotary clubs exist to improve communities through a range of humanitarian, intercultural and educational activities. Clubs advance international understanding by partnering with clubs in other countries. Rotary also encourages high ethical standards in all vocations.
What do Rotary clubs do?
Rotary clubs address critical issues at home and abroad by providing health care and medical supplies, clean water, food, job training, youth development, and education to millions of people in need. Examples of Rotary's focus areas include:
Each Rotary club meets weekly to enjoy fellowship, and to discuss the club's service goals.
Each club is part of a Rotary District. Custer belongs to District 5610, which includes all of South Dakota, parts of Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
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:
FIRST
The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
SECOND
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;
THIRD
The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
FOURTH
The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
Avenues of Service
Based on the Object of Rotary, are Rotary's philosophical cornerstone and the foundation on which club activity is based:
Club Service
Vocational Service
Community Service
International Service
New Generation
The Four-Way Test
Of the things we think, say or 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?
Mission
The mission of Rotary International is to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through its fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.
Custer Rotary Club
Projects
Custer Food Pantry/Community Exchange:Assisting in the handling of food, and providing a monthly contribution. The Storehouse started out as the Custer Food Pantry and The Community Exchange and was created by local volunteers to provide a place for people to donate household furnishings and clothes and food. It is then distributed to people in need at no cost.
Custer Boy Scouts:
As a charter sponsor, the Custer Rotary supports the Custer Boy Scouts program. In the past we assisted an Eagle Scout candidate, with a project to construct a picnic shelter at Gates Park, and look forward to assisting in other ways. In addition an annual contribution to the local troop is made.
Hwy 89 (Sylvan Lake Road) Road clean up-
West Dam and Park area:
Assisted in a playground area by providing fencing. Collaborated with the Lions Club on providing shade trees, and a bench area at the playground. Constructed a picnic shelter and BBQ grill on west side of the dam near the ball diamond. In past years working with the City of Custer, built a wheelchair accessible fishing pier, and picnic shelters
Pageant Hill: A new roof for the stone shelter at Pageant Hill was constructed.
Custer Dog Park Shelter constructed.
Annual Donations-Custer Rotary also donates funds annually to the Custer Senior Center, Church and Community Response, Relay for Life, Youth Projects, Literacy program, YMCA, Polio Plus, Rotary International-Paul Harris Fellow and other worthwhile local projects from our contingency fund. In addition, other Rotary International projects we have assisted in such as wheelchair distribution, sewing machines to third world countries, and partnering with other Rotary Clubs on different projects.