Our club's service projects for the 2023-24 Rotary year included:

• District Grant #1 - Lincoln Elementary School – Supporting Literacy / Stream
  • Provided pumpkins
  • Provided candy for prizes
  • Deposited money in the library wallet (online) for the first-place winners to purchase a book from the reading list
  • Second place winners received candy and popcorn (donated by Mimi & Papa’s.)
  • Third place winners received candy.
  • Rotarians engaged with students in the reading and voting process.
  • We purchased a Sphero (coding robotic balls) BOLT power pack (power pack case, 15 robots, charging cradles) for the Media Center in addition to a code mat. 
• District Grant #2 - Brunswick Senior Resources / Senior Center
  • Purchased a large storage cabinet for the Senior Sundry Closet
  • Sourced and purchased “most needed items” for Senior clientele of the center such as hygiene items, cleaning products, paper goods, etc.
  • Rotarians stocked the closet and will replenish as the need arises.
• School Supply Drive:  Sponsored by Signature Wealth Rotarians donated requested school supplies as part of a school supply drive sponsored by Signature Wealth Strategies at the beginning of the school year.
• Lincoln Elementary School Book Fairs: Rotarians participated in both the September and April book fairs at Lincoln Elementary School.
• Trunk or Treat: Rotarians donated more than 2500 pieces of candy to hand out to children at our Peanuts themed van at the Town of Leland’s Trunk or Treat event.
• Book Inventory: Helped Lincoln Elementary School comply with a state mandate by recording books and authors of books in teachers’ classrooms.
• Read Across America: Rotarians participated in nationwide program by reading a book in classrooms at Lincoln Elementary School.
• Lunch Duty: Rotarians volunteered to cover lunch duty for teachers at Lincoln Elementary School.
• Adopt-a-Highway: Trash pickup on Village Road.
• Meals on Wheels: Filled holiday candy bags for delivery to Meals on Wheels clients in November & December.
• Operation Christmas Child: Sourced and purchased suggested items for 50 shoeboxes for children in need around the world.  Our boxes were delivered to a village in Burundi, Southeast Africa.
• Angel Giving Tree at the Senior Center: Rotarians gifted “Wish List” items for Seniors who put tags on the Senior Center Christmas tree.
• Brunswick Family Assistance: provided a full holiday meal for four families in addition to a $50 Piggly Wiggly gift card and a hygiene gift bag for each child. (9 adults, 5 children)
• Festival of Trees: Supported the Belville Elementary School fundraiser by sponsoring a tree and all the ornaments to be auctioned off at the event.  Rotarians also participated in the decorating of the tree.
• BCC Brunswick Interagency Program (BIP): Participated in a cookout with all the Brunswick County Rotary Clubs to provide food, games, crafts and interaction with the BIP students enrolled at the college.  BIP serves adults with intellectual disabilities. 
• Backpack Program: Packed and delivered 36 weeks of food averaging 130 bags/week for a total of 4,680 bags of food provided to food-insecure students at Lincoln Elementary School.

Rotary is a global network of more than 46,000 clubs and 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders, and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.

Solving real problems takes real commitment and vision. For more than 110 years, Rotary's people of action have used their passion, energy, and intelligence to take action on sustainable projects. From literacy and peace to water and health, we are always working to better our world, and we stay committed to the end.

Learn more about our structure and our foundation and our strategic vision.

What We Do

Rotary members believe that we have a shared responsibility to take action on our world’s most persistent issues. Our 46,000+ clubs work together to:

• Promote peace
• Fight disease
• Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
• Save mothers and children
• Support education
• Grow local economies
• Protect the environment

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Rotary International's Mission

We provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.

Rotary International's Vision

Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.

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Service Above Self and One Profits Most Who Serves Best, Rotary’s official mottoes, can be traced back to the early days of the organization.

In  1911, the second Rotary convention, in Portland, Oregon, USA, approved He Profits Most Who Serves Best as the Rotary motto. The wording was adapted from a speech that Rotarian Arthur Frederick Sheldon delivered to the first convention, held in Chicago the previous year. Sheldon declared that “only the science of right conduct toward others pays. Business is the science of human services. He profits most who serves his fellows best.”

The Portland gathering also inspired the motto Service Above Self. During an outing on the Columbia River, Ben Collins, president of the Rotary Club of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, talked with Seattle Rotarian J.E. Pinkham about the proper way to organize a Rotary club, offering the principle his club had adopted: Service, Not Self. Pinkham invited Rotary founder Paul Harris, who also was on the trip, to join their conversation. Harris asked Collins to address the convention, and the phrase Service, Not Self was met with great enthusiasm.

At the 1950 Rotary International Convention in Detroit, Michigan, USA, two slogans were formally approved as the official mottoes of Rotary: He Profits Most Who Serves Best and Service Above Self. The 1989 Council on Legislation established Service Above Self as the principal motto of Rotary because it best conveys the philosophy of unselfish volunteer service. He Profits Most Who Serves Best was modified to They Profit Most Who Serve Best in 2004 and to its current wording, One Profits Most Who Serves Best, in 2010.

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

• FIRST: The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• SECOND: High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• THIRD: The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life;
• FOURTH: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings:
Of the things we think, say or do

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

We channel our commitment to service at home and abroad through five Avenues of Service, which are the foundation of club activity.

• Club Service focuses on making clubs strong. A thriving club is anchored by strong relationships and an active membership development plan.
• Vocational Service calls on every Rotarian to work with integrity and contribute their expertise to the problems and needs of society. Learn more in An Introduction to Vocational Service and the Code of Conduct.
• Community Service encourages every Rotarian to find ways to improve the quality of life for people in their communities and to serve the public interest. Learn more in Communities in Action: A Guide to Effective Projects.
• International Service exemplifies our global reach in promoting peace and understanding. We support this service avenue by sponsoring or volunteering on international projects, seeking partners abroad, and more.
• Youth Service recognizes the importance of empowering youth and young professionals through leadership development programs such as Interact, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, and Rotary Youth Exchange.

The Rotary Foundation transforms your gifts into service projects that change lives both close to home and around the world.

Since it was founded more than 100 years ago, the Foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing, sustainable projects.

With your help, we can make lives better in your community and around the world.

Our mission

The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty.

What impact can one donation have?

• For as little as 60 cents, a child can be protected from polio.
• $50 can provide clean water to help fight waterborne illness.
• $500 can launch an antibullying campaign and create a safe environment for children.

Click here to learn more.