With the plethora of clubs that are present on campus, there is no shortage of organizations for students to join. One club that is often overlooked is McKendree’s Rotaract Club. This type of club isn’t reserved for McKendree, or even universities in general, but is an international organization. There are community-led Rotary organizations around the globe that are welcome to all members. In fact, it is quite common for community-led branches of Rotary to sponsor and partner with their local university’s club. For example, McKendree’s club is a partner with the Rotary Club of O’Fallon Sunrise.
Rotaract Club does a lot of good for the community that often goes unnoticed and underappreciated. One example is that last year while the war on Ukraine was first raging the country, McKendree’s Rotaract Club partnered with various Rotary Clubs in the area to send $4,000 to a Rotary Club in Poland to help the Ukrainian refugees with supply and food expenses.
Rotaract Club has also taken on some smaller examples of local kindness this school year. One of the longer projects that the club is currently working on is turning plastic bags into a workable yarn (nicknamed plarn) that is turned into sleeping mats for the homeless in the area. This club was also responsible for the jack-o’-lanterns seen around campus during the fall and the hundreds of American flags that lined the sidewalks for Veterans Day. Rotaract Club is responsible for so much good in the community, and yet often gets ignored or unnoticed, and this doesn’t even include the projects that McKendree’s club was invited to participate in with the local club in O’Fallon.
Aside from doing small acts of kindness for your community, this club can act as a resume booster since you are doing multiple acts of community service every semester. Just this week, in preparation for Valentine’s Day, the club made dozens of cards for Cedar Ridge Health & Rehab Center in order to brighten up the lives of those who get little to no visitors there.
Rotaract Club is always welcoming new members and plans to do so much more during this spring semester!
