About Us

Information About Our Club: ROTARY CLUB OF CHICAGO FINANCIAL DISTRICT

Our Rotary club, the Rotary Club of Chicago Financial District (Rotary CFD), was established in 1985. we meet for a luncheon meeting at 12:15, on the first and third Thursdays of each month, at the Berghoff Restaurant - in downtown Chicago. We routinely order our lunch off of the menu, which is routinely followed by a presentation from a speaker, after which share comradely over lunch.

Our club engages services projects in the Chicago area. Our ongoing service project is our "Peace Through Smart Art," in conjunction with the Smart Art Museum with the University of Chicago. A series of six weekly art lessons are provided to 4th and 5th grade, with a visit to the Smart Art museum before and after the series of art lessons.The lessons incorporate a strong emphasis on promoting peace.

Other service projects have include:
We have re-packed commodities at the Food Depository of Greater Chicago.
We have assisted in efforts to get winter coats to veterans in need.
We periodically get together at a member’s home to pack art supplies into backpacks, to distribute to sudents participating in our “Smart Art program,"
            Even upon casual observation of the students at the visit before, and then after the eight weeks of instruction, reveals a decidedly increase in engagement of the students with the different pieces of art in the museum.

Our club is just one of 46,000 rotary clubs worldwide; there are some 1.4 million members in the organization. The signature philanthropic project of the international organization, Rotary International, has been an effort to eliminate polio from the world. At this stage, a constant effort is required to terminate periodic breakthroughs (three countries remaining) of the polio virus. It should be noted, that Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, has provided several hundred million dollars to join in the effort to eliminate polio.

Reputed to be the first service club, the first meeting of the first Rotary Club was in 1905, organized by Paul Harris in Chicago.

Of interest to anyone asking about the nature of Rotary, the following one sentence definition was formulated by Rotary International in 1976:
         “Rotary is an organization of business and professional people united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.”

For further information on our Rotary Club, our contact email is: 
rotaryclubcfd@gmail.com

 

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