January is Rotary Awareness Month, and Sycamore's own District Governor Steve Kuhn took time to remind us about Rotary's connection to its roots -- something that is passed along to all Rotarians from the beginning of their membership, as a reminder of what this organization is all about.
DG Steve has been taking the Club's copy of the official portrait of Rotary International founder Paul Harris with him to various Rotary events in District 6420. Harris is an icon to those in Rotary, not just because he originally conceived of the club...but because he infused it with his own desire to help his community, and to build friendship and goodwill among others.
Impressed by the informality of close-knit business colleagues away from the workplace, he envisioned a club where members would treat each other as equals, and use their combined skills to benefit the public. Joining three others at the founding meeting on February 23, 1905 in Chicago, they set out to bring together other members from different professions...rotating their weekly meetings among their various offices (inspiring the name Rotary).
From this humble beginning, Rotary has grown to encompass the globe; it has over 1.2 million members in Rotary Clubs around the world, each devoted to providing service to their fellow man in thousands of different ways -- living up to the tenents of the Four-Way Test, and the Rotary motto "Service Above Self."
The Sycamore Rotary Club was chartered in April of 1944, and throughout the years has brought together local icons from a variety of professions -- from law, finance and insurance, to education, technology and the arts. While Sycamore is one of the larger clubs in District 6420, Rotarians consistently prove that it's not the size of a club which matters, but the drive behind it; the tiny Rotary Club of Harvard recently made it into the pages of The Rotarian, with its local garden project.
DG Steve reminded the Rotarians on hand that they have the skills necessary, and the will behind it, to do so much to benefit Sycamore and DeKalb County -- the best way to uphold the legacy of Paul Harris, and of Rotary itself.