History of the Rotary Club of Twinsburg 1945-2016

About Our Club
 

Charter presentation: Wed., Nov 28, 1945 sponsored by Hudson Rotary Club and  dinner at the Grange Hall (now Twinsburg Historical Society). President- John Sauble; Vice-president- Fred Bissell; Secretary-Treasurer- Charles Allen; Directors- Ray Richner,Richard Schroeder, Ray Diersing, Richard Benedict and Franklyn Lehn. Other members were Austin Burridge, Lester Roxbury, Hugo Braunlich, Wilbur Roseberry, Carl Herrick, Leonard Roach, Fred Witt, Paul Munn, Dwight Mills and Wilbur Rylander.
 
1st regular meeting was held on Monday evening at the Congregational Church on the square.
 
All charter members are deceased.
 
Twinsburg was still a village; population < 5,000.  1 school building for all grades.  Mostly farm land with the main intersection of 3 2-lane roads.
 
Many initial projects centered around the First Congregational Church: 
  
   · Lighting of the church tower and paying the electric bill and maintenance; 
   · installing a guard rail along the west side of the square; 
   · providing music played from the church tower at Christmas; 
   · major contributions to improvements in the church dining rooms and kitchen; 
   · major contributions to building the addition to the church; 
   · and manual labor of painting the interior and exterior of the church.
 
Another major project was the Twinsburg Youth Center, now the Senior Recreation building at Chamberlin Park.
 
The original Spokesman (weekly club bulletin) featured the 1848 church structure. The copies of the Spokesman were saved for 25 years by perfect attendance member Fred Bissell, which made it easier to trace the club's history from 1945-1970.
 
In 1957, the club took a $10,000 mortgage. Then they physically moved the one-story wood construction office from the Chrysler Plant to its present location. They had previously used hatchets, saws, axes and pruners to clear the building site.  They even had to remove all of the main and paper boxes along Chamberlin Road to clear the way. The initial users of the building were the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, both of whom were originally sponsored by Twinsburg Rotary. Then the club backed the Youth Center Fund Raising Committee, which raised another $15,100 for completion and operations.
 
From 1957 -1969, The Twinsburg Club co-sponsored the Easter Sunrise Service at Crown Hill Cemetery.  Club members rose an hour before daylight on Easter morning to guide and direct traffic and see that the services went off on schedule.
 
In 1962, Twinsburg Rotary enabled the formation of the American Field Service Chapter.  This fits-in with Rotary's aim of fostering a project to get it started before it becomes self-sustaining. The club continued making significant financial contributions over the years, enabling high school students from abroad to spend a year in Twinsburg, and for Twinsburg students to study abroad.
 
From 1948-1961, Twinsburg Rotary sponsored 2 students and a faculty member from the Twinsburg school system each year to spend a week-end in Cincinnati at a World Affairs Institute arranged by Rotary International. There they heard speakers from the State Department and from other countries.
 
Inter-club relationships were very important to the Twinsburg Rotary Club.  Many joint meetings were held with adjoining clubs, even having joint installation and "oustallation" ceremonies.  Rotary also frequently met with other organizations and hosted speakers from the Chamber of Commerce, the VFW and the Jr. Chamber of Commerce.
 
Fund raising is always an important activity of the club, there are some which should be singled out.
· The first such project was collecting and counting sales tax stamps in the late 40's and 50's. The stamps were then sent to the Auditor of State for redemption.  It was a very sizable amount, over the years.
· For many years, selling maple syrup was the biggest money maker.  Imagine driving to Geauga County for maple syrup, then standing on the street corners at Town Square on cold and/or rainy March days hawking maple syrup. Floyd Paschke was always the chairman and main salesman, some years netting as much as $1,500 in 1980's dollars.
· The 1st Scholarship Reverse Raffle was held in March 1973 at Villa di Borally and   earned $2,000, and changed to October for future events..  This venture was chaired by Jim Mirgliotta, who was always the  number-one seller of tickets.  After 21 years, the chairmanship was turned over to Guy Gentile.  This project netted as much as 9,700 in 1988.
· The 1st Valentine's Day Reverse Raffle was 1992 and netted $1,450.  This successful event provided a lower cost addition to the Scholarship Reverse Raffle, yet has earned as much as $3,200 under the able leadership of Cindy Leonard.
· Twinsburg Rotary has had a booth at the Twins Days Festival since its inception. The booth, at various times, sold popcorn, lemonade, pretzels, ice cream, roasted corn, badges and T-shirts, netting as little as $200 some years.  The beer-garden booth now earns around $5,000 each year.  In addition, for many years Twinsburg Rotary has cooked, served and cleaned-up after the Twins Friday night hotdog roast at no charge.
 
The annual December holiday party has, since the 1990s, included a white-elephant auction for various charities that has, in an unusual year, raised as much as $2,275, thanks to great auctioneering by Jim Mirgliotta, Tony Sasala and Guy Gentile.
 
The Rotary Community Calendar project run by Shaker Rotary's Tom Eaken has provided a small, steady income since the 1980s.
 
Other short-lived  ventures have been a RotaryAnn(wives) basketball game against Revco Drug, Art Auctions, WalkaThons, golf tournaments and white-elephant sales. In 1989, artist Florian Lawton was commissioned to paint a snow scene of Twinsburg Square.  Under the guidance of Guy Gentile, 300 prints were made and signed by the artist and sold to the community, netting a few thousand dollars.
 
The service projects since 1970, have been many. They include both local giving and international giving.  
   -          contributed to the stage on Village Square and 
   -          donated the Wilcox Twins Memorial on the Square and 
   -          planted trees on the Square. 
   -          helped start Junior Achievement in Twinsburg and 
   -          once sponsored an Interact Club at Chamberlin H.S. 
   -          also aided 
      o   foreign exchange students, 
      o   the Longwood YMCA, 
      o   the school nurses fund, 
      o   Hattie Larlham Foundation, 
      o   individual medical emergencies, 
      o   Stone Ledge Camp, 
      o   Twinsburg Library, 
      o   Twinsburg Community Center, 
      o   World Wide Seminar for World Understanding, 
      o   little league baseball, 
      o   Leukemia/Lymphoma, 
      o   Lupus Foundation, 
      o   Twinsburg Police fund, etc.
 
The Seniors Picnic has been a free attraction for seniors since 1991.
 
Twinsburg Rotary has sponsored Rotary's 4-Way Speech Contest in the schools.
 
In 2004, the club started donating personal, new dictionaries to every third grader.
 
Twinsburg Rotary has had foreign exchange students from France, Sweden, Japan, Guatamala, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Costa Rica and the Phillipines speak at the the meetings.
 
Twinsburg Rotary has helped host and been visited by Rotary Group Study-Exchange groups from England, Sweden, Phillipines, Argentina, Korea, India, Japan England, Taiwan and Uruguay.
 
Twinsburg Rotary has always been a contributor to the Rotary Foundation, which supports the Group Study-Exchange, Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships, Rotary World Peace Scholarships, Rotary Grants for University Teachers and Humanitarian Grants. The club has helped PolioPlus to raise over $600 million to eradicate Polio from the world; 99.9% of the world is polio free. Members who have contributed $1,000 become Paul Harris Fellows.  Twinsburg Rotary has 10 Paul Harris or multiple Paul Harris Fellows to date.  The Rotary Scholarship fund during more than 20 years provided over $200,000 in low-cost loans to over 100 students. The Scholarship Fund was redesigned and now gives 3 students $1,000 scholarships with no cost to the students.
 
In 1988, the first Floyd Paschke "Rotarian of the Year" Award was given to Jim Mirgliotta.  Subsequent "Rotarian of the Year" Awards were given to Phil Johnson in 1990, Len Caminer in 1991 and Cindy Leonard in 2010.  In honor of Floyd Paschke, who had 36 years of perfect attendance,  Terry Tyson (now deceased) had dedicated his record of perfect attendance at meetings for 31 years.
 
Twinsburg Rotary is proud of having inducted it's first female member, Lois Combs, in October 1987 and elected  it's first female president, Cindy Leonard, in 1993.
 
Twinsburg Rotarians enjoy the sociability of meeting with their wives at the summer picnic at Dean's Barn, the holiday party and the installation dinner plus special events during the year.
 
Through the efforts of past president Laura Leonard, we have sponsored a Rotary Interact Club in Twinsburg High School, whose members have volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House, hosted a Masquerade Ball for high school students as well as a Prince/Princess Ball for 4 to 10 year olds, proceeds of which were used to purchase Life Straws to provide clean water in disadvantaged areas without a source of clean drinking water, as well as a donation to H2O for Life. The Interact members provide invaluable assistance to the Rotary Club with many of our projects.
 
Rotary Centennial Year President, Dave Harper, has dedicated himself to continuing this glorious past of Twinsburg Rotary and is planning for a very successful year of service and fellowship. Our current President, Gary Sorace, has been instrumental in bringing many new members into our club.  We look forward to the 2016-2017 Presidency of Philip Weiss.