What is Rotary?

Rotary is a worldwide organization of business, civic, and professional leaders dedicated to helping their community, promoting high ethical standards in business and government and fostering international understanding, goodwill, and peace. There are over 24,000 Rotary Clubs in 167 countries with over 1,000,000 members.

Rotary Clubs sponsor over 50,000 service projects worldwide to improve the quality of life of the impoverished, the ill and the disabled.

Among other achievements, Rotary has lead the fight against infantile paralysis (polio) and has helped to eradicate the disease worldwide.

On a local level, your Newburgh Rotary Club works with dozens of not-for-profit groups to provide much needed services to promote vocational training, civic responsibility, and international awareness among our young people, and help nurture the business climate in our community.

Newburgh Rotary Club Programs

The Newburgh Rotary Club was chartered in 1917 and is one of the oldest continuous clubs in the world. Such distinguished civic leaders as Archie Stewart of Stewart International Airport fame, and Dr. Russell Scobie, known as the father of fluoridation, have been members.

Your Newburgh Rotary Club continues its good works by sponsoring numerous programs on a local level, which have included:

• International Youth Exchange, in which one to two high school students study abroad for a year, and one to two foreign students study in Newburgh for a year, while living with host families arranged through the Rotary Club.
  
  
• International Group Study Exchange, in which business people and professionals spend several weeks as Rotary's guests in a foreign country as ambassadors of goodwill.
  
  
• Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA), in which one to two students from Newburgh Free Academy attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Conference, held at the Storm King School in Cornwall-on-Hudson every summer, teaching public speaking and management skills and the ethical responsibilities of leadership.
  
  
• Vocational Service, in which disadvantaged youth are given an opportunity to train with an experienced business mentor.
  
  
• The Archie Stewart Rotary Scholarship Fund, in which every year one or more NFA students receive a stipend to study at an accredited college of their choice.
  
  
• Local non-profit organizations assisted by the Newburgh Rotary Club have included the YMCA/YWCA, The Salvation Army of Newburgh, Meals on Wheels, The Holden Home, Independent Living, Inc., local chapters of the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and numerous others.

How do I join?

• Members must be sponsored by a current Rotarian.
  
  
• Membership is open to all eligible adults active in business, government and the professions who are able to accept the Rotary four-way test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
  
  
• The Newburgh Rotary Club is a non-political, secular, not-for-profit association.
  
  
• The Newburgh Rotary Club meets for lunch and meetings every Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. Costagliola’s Little Italy - 121 Washington Ave. (at Broadway) Newburgh N.Y. We typically host a guest speaker at every meeting following lunch to discuss topics of current interest whether local, national or international.
  
  
• Lastly, but not least, you will find that being a member of the Newburgh Rotary Club is an enjoyable, often humorous, sometimes serious, but always a pleasant way to do something for your community which will not only enrich the lives of others, but yours as well.
  
  

For more information, please join us
for lunch as a guest of the club.