Club provides an antidote to troubled times
It was 2020 and the world was, as Sarah Garrette puts it, “a dumpster fire,” roiled by the global pandemic, unrest over police violence against Black Americans, and a divisive election in the United States. “I felt pretty isolated and wanted to give back, but I felt out of control with things happening in the culture and with the pandemic,” she says. “I thought, I can’t change the big things, but if I start on the microlevel — in the community — those little impacts add up.”
She hopped on Facebook and typed “volunteer opportunities” into the search bar. The Rotary Club of Springboro popped up.
Her dad had been a Rotary member, so Garrette reached out over Facebook. Because of the pandemic, meetings were held over videoconference, and she dropped in to check a few out. She found a dynamic group of people of all ages, about 50/50 women and men, who want to strengthen their community.
This thriving membership wasn’t always the case for the club. It chartered with 25 members in 2004, but by 2007, that number had shrunk, perilously, to 13. Doug Buchy, a member of the Rotary Club of Dayton, was asked to transfer his membership to help bring the Springboro club back to life. While he was Springboro club president in 2009-10, it grew to 17 members. “We stopped the bleed,” he says. “We kept growing and growing.” Today club membership stands at almost 40.
Members of the Rotary Club of Springboro, Ohio (from left): Scott Marshall, Sarah Garrette, April Walker, and Doug Buchy.
Image credit: Meg Vogel
The club made adjustments to attract new members. It switched from a lunch club to a breakfast club, which offered more convenience in a suburb where residents often work in the larger cities of Dayton or Cincinnati. “People couldn’t come back to Springboro for lunch from where they were working,” explains Buchy. “That’s why we were losing membership.”
To lower costs, a concern especially of younger members, the club decided to meet for coffee instead of breakfast. Occasionally, someone brings doughnuts. “We try to make things really simple,” says Past President April Walker.
A highlight of meetings, members say, is the monthly “get to know a Rotarian” presentation, in which club members take the floor to talk about themselves. One member told about how his dad was a clown; another showed a senior photo from high school in the ’80s in which he sported a mullet and gold chain. “You think you know people in the hour you spend with them, but you don’t,” says Walker, who instituted the club favorite when she was president in 2021-22. “It really added a level of fellowship.” At many meetings, the club also asks “get to know you” questions, such as “Which is your favorite Muppet and why?” and “Did you name your family car when you were a child and what was its name?”
“I know fun is a plain, boring word, but I can’t think of a better way to sum up this club,” says member Scott Marshall. “No person in their right mind wants to be up and at a meeting at 7:30 in the morning. But I really look forward to these things. It’s just a blast.”
Club health check
To see how your club is doing and find remedies to any problems, check out Rotary’s club health check, which assesses club well-being in several areas:
- Club experience: Members who have a positive experience are more likely to stay, and their enthusiasm is contagious.
- Service and social events: Service and fun with fellow members are the main reasons people join and stick with a club.
- Members: A healthy club is one that is growing and changing; having members with diverse perspectives and experiences fuels innovation and gives your club a broader understanding of your community’s needs.
- Image: A positive public image improves your club’s relationship with the community and prospective members.
- Business and operations: Leadership development, strategic planning, and succession planning are ways to fortify your club.
In another change, the club increased the number of service opportunities and is involved in more than 20 fundraisers and projects each year. On a sunny day in April, the club hosted a “build a bed” project in partnership with the nonprofit Sleep in Heavenly Peace. The group collaborated with nearby Rotary clubs to raise $22,000 to purchase materials and bedding. More than 100 volunteers — club members and their families, high school students, and other community members — gathered at the county fairgrounds in Cincinnati to work assembly-line style to build 150 beds in less than six hours. “These aren’t Ikea ready-to-assemble beds,” Marshall says. “There was wood coming off the truck. We were measuring it, cutting it, drilling holes, branding with the logo.”
To quickly bring new members into the fold, the club surveys them about which committees, projects, and fundraisers they’d like to be involved with. They’re put to work on their choices. “You have to get them involved right away,” says Buchy, the 2023-24 governor for District 6670. (All club members receive the same survey annually.)
When Walker joined the club in 2019, she was “voluntold” to lead its nascent social media efforts. She started taking pictures and livestreaming videos of service projects to put the club out there. “I think people are inherently good; they want to do things in the community but don’t know how,” she says. “We give them an opportunity.”
The club continued to gain members even during the pandemic. When Walker became club president, she made recruiting women and elevating them to leadership positions a centerpiece.
One of them was Garrette, who within six months became club treasurer. And as she tallies what she’s given through Rotary versus what she’s received, the value of her membership becomes clear. “I joined the club in a very polarized time. I was looking for something to ground me, make me more open-minded to others,” she says. “If we can find common ground through giving back to our community and surrounding area, it gives me a lot of hope that people aren’t all that different after all. I’ve gotten back tenfold.”
And she’s able to lead by example for her two young children. “Now my kids think Rotary is super cool,” she says. “They always ask if they can go to meetings, probably because it’s before school and they can get a doughnut.”
This story originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.