The Rotary Club of Jacksonville celebrates its 100th birthday this weekend.
But Florida's first Rotary Club believes it's better to give than receive, so it joined 28 other area clubs to give Jacksonville a mobile health unit to help those in need in Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, Putnam and Baker counties.
Of course, it isn't a birthday without some celebration. So the club held charity golf and tennis tournaments on Tuesday to raise funds for the new mobile clinic at St. Vincent's Medical Center Riverside. A Centennial Gala is set for today at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville downtown. And Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee of Gujarat, India, is guest speaker at Monday's special noon meeting of the Rotary's regional clubs.
"We not only wanted to thank the Rotarians that came before us, but inspire the members so the club will grow stronger as it enters its next 100 years," said Rotary Club of Jacksonville President Howard Dale. "We are very pleased that Banerjee is coming. … This is a rare event for the Rotary, only the fourth time in the past 50 years we have had a Rotary International president in Jacksonville."
St. Vincent's HealthCare Foundation certainly wants to thank the 29 rotary clubs in North Florida that made the mobile clinic its centennial gift, said foundation Vice President Jane Lanier.
"We are so grateful," Lanier said. "This mobile health clinic will reach thousands of children and families every year. We take a doctor's office on wheels to schools, neighborhoods, churches and community groups, and it could be busy every day of the year."
The Rotary Club has its roots in Jacksonville. Founder Paul Harris was a salesman at George Clark's Jacksonville company in the 1890s. He moved and founded the first Rotary Club in Chicago in 1905. Clark was named president of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville when it was founded on Feb. 13, 1912, the 41st of what are now 40,000 clubs worldwide with 1.3 million members.
The Rotary Club of Jacksonville annually awards about $70,000 to area charities and programs and funds other Rotary projects worldwide, such as EndPolio Now and disaster relief. The Rotary Club of Arlington is doing a $120,000 expansion and improvement project at the Woodland Acres Boys and Girls Club, which will be recognized at 10:30 a.m. Monday by Binota Banerjee, Kalyan Banerjee's wife.
The new mobile clinic has a waiting room, two examination rooms, office space and a laboratory and medical screening area. It will be staffed with registered nurses, nurse practitioners and doctors, and an emergency medical technician as driver. The new unit will be dedicated at Monday's Rotary event, where the 29 clubs that have raised almost all of its $500,000 cost will be honored. Florida's 61 clubs will also be honored for their centennial celebration community projects, Dale said.
dan.scanlan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4549
