The Birth of Camp Rotary, published in 1949
The Birth of Camp Rotary
The Rotary Club of Lynn has the honor of having the longest running continuous project in Rotary. Camp Rotary, a service project of the Rotary Club in Lynn, has been in operation since 1921, and Camp Rotary Inc was incorporated in 1929 to oversee the camp. The Camp has been very successful since it's inception and the Lynn Rotary Club through it's contract with Youth Service Managers continues to oversee the success of the Camp. A pamphlet recently came to our attention which was written in 1949 to explain the birth of Camp Rotary to new members. It is reproduced here to inform our new members about Camp Rotary and to allow some of our long term members to review again how the Camp came to be. The article details how the Club came to feel a camp would be great for disadvantaged boys and how early Rotarians searched out land, organized how to pay for it, and contracted out the management to an organization, the YMCA, which would provide "moral and physical training" for the boys. The camp is currently managed by Youth Service Managers and overseen by Camp Rotary, Inc.The following quote, taken from the 1949 summary, is as true today as it was in 1949 and in 1921 when the camp started: "This contribution to the welfare of youth of greater Lynn through the ownership of Camp Rotary by our Club and the outstanding moral influence and physical training given by the Young Men’s Christian Association in it’s operation of the camp has paid splendid dividends in the up building of good citizenship of hundreds of underprivileged boys of Greater Lynn who otherwise could not have attended camp. This is a fact of which our members should be justly proud."