Community service, sometimes called the heartbeat of Rotary, encompasses all the activities that Rotarians undertake to improve the quality of life for all people within the club's territory. Rotary's first community service project was carried out in 1907, the year after Rotary was founded, when the Chicago club built a public comfort station near City Hall.
Many RI Community Service programs are designed to support club efforts in the following areas of concern: literacy; the environment through the Preserve Planet Earth program; drug and alcohol abuse prevention; concern for the aging; hunger; conflict resolution; clean water; children; families; AIDs; and youth leadership training.
Community Service also means working with organizations that Rotary sponsors
-- its
Partners in Service. These groups include two other service clubs -- Rotaract
for young
adults and Interact for secondary school students. A third Partner in Service
program is
Rotary Village Corps (RVC) and Rotary Community Corps (RCC). These self-help
groups are made up of local residents working to improve their community
under the
sponsorship of a Rotary club.