LOUDONVILLE — The Loudonville Rotary Club celebrated its 100th anniversary Thursday with a dinner and remarks from club members and the northern Ohio district governor.
“Over the last century, Loudonville rotarians have continued that tradition: showing up for the community, leading with integrity and demonstrating what it truly means to be people of action,” Rotary District 6600 Governor Pam Brumbaugh told the group.
“Let this next chapter be one where you continue to build bridges, strengthen friendships and collaborate, not just within your club, but with your community and fellow rotarions across the district and around the world,” Brumbaugh said.
Brumbaugh then presented club President John Carroll with the Centennial Certificate of Recognition from Rotary International.
Carroll proceeded to tell club members about the history of the organization, which was officially formed on Oct. 26, 1925.
He said the group became increasingly active during the 1930s, even amid the Great Depression. He mentioned a unique blood drive during a blood shortage amid World War Two.
In the 1970s the club became heavily involved in the youth exchange program, which boasts 57 outbound and inbound students involved in the exchange, according to 100th Anniversary Program.
One of the students who participated in the program was Carroll’s daughter, Sarah, Who visited Argentina for a couple of months.
By the 1980s, the club had gained a significant amount of new members, partially because of the allowance of women to join rotary clubs.
“Our membership has dwindled and we’ve sort of learned to do more of us. All of us within the club work together and get things done,” he said.
Carroll mentioned the struggle the group faced during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
The group has not decided on a 100-years project yet, but Carroll said he hopes the group can focus on how to grow the membership to what it was in the past.
Their past service projects have included creating scholarships for local schools, funding the construction of a small bridge over Black Fork to Riverside Park and more.
Past rotarian Rev. Tom Fish also shared his memories of being a rotarian with the club. He shared his favorite story, which took place before he was a member while he was on a mission trip to Vincente Noble, Dominican Republic.
While there, a local president of his rotary club invited Fish and his group of 15 other missionaries over for dinner. The dinner was a goat stew.
Fish later found out the goat was actually the family pet, which the man sacrificed for the missionaries because he did not have the means to feed them otherwise.
“In that experience, I learned about the caliber of what a rotarian is,” Fish said while tearing up.
Other members shared their favorite stories from over the years and Carroll closed the event by thanking everyone for coming, and gifting them all finger-shaped cookies, with dyed purple fingertips.
The purple fingertips symbolizes the Rotary International’s involvement in the vaccination against polio. When a child received a polio vaccine, their finger was dyed purple so that other people knew not to vaccinate the child twice.
“Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease,” according to Rotary International’s website.
