Club History

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Chartered on April 28, 1977, the Rotary Club of Rohnert Park - Cotati has served the communities of Rohnert Park and Cotati for over thirty years.  Contributions to both of the communities have been numerous and include several Xericape landscaping projects, park benches and picnic tables, kitchen fixtures for the Boys & Girls club, dictionaries for local schools, computer labs for community and senior centers, and neighborhood beautification projects.  Additionally, Rohnert Park-Cotati Rotarians have been involved internationally, assisting with Polio Plus, Rotoplast, Festival of Brotherhood, and Adopt-A-Village projects.

Our Banner

Depicting the "Friendly City" sign of Rohnert Park and the hexagon "Hub" of Cotati

The Dove was added to signify Rotary's emphasis on World Peace

This is intended to be a dynamic page, with information continuously added as facts, stories, and legends are collected from current and past Rotarians.  Please check back often.

The Rotary of Rohnert Park-Cotati is very young in comparison to other Sonoma County clubs, many of which were chartered in the 1920's and Rotary International, which was founded in 1905.

Rotary's beginnings are as follows:

On the evening of 23 February 1905, Paul Harris invited three friends to a meeting. They were Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer; Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor; and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer. Schiele and Harris, after dinner together, met with the two others in Loehr's business office in Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown Chicago on Dearborn Avenue. Thus, the Rotary movement was born and soon the Rotary Club of Chicago was formed.

Rotary Wheel 1906, 1910, 1913, and 1926 (courtesy RGHF)

Click Here for more Rotary history, as collected and presented by the Rotary Global History Fellowship.