Rotary Club of Madras at 95 to focus on health, homes

CHENNAI: Marking 95 years of its existence, Rotary Club of Madras will take up a range of projects including building houses for the homeless, restoring lakes and setting up mammogram units in remote villages and a mobile dental clinic.
Rotary Club of Madras president Ravi Sundaresan said the club received corporate donations of 12 crore from eight states during 2023-24.He was interacting on the sidelines of the release of the fourth edition of 'A Timeless Legacy', a book that chronicles the history and contributions of Rotary Club of Madras for more than nine decades. Established in 1929 by James Wheeler Davidson, a Canadian, the club is the third oldest Rotary Club in the country after Kolkata and Mumbai.
The fourth edition has historical documents such as missives exchanged between a Rotary Club in the US and Madras in the early 1930s. The Rotary Club of Keokuk in the US initiated 'The Peace Pipe’, an effort to promote peace and understanding among different cultures and nations.
The initiative involved creation of a ceremonial peace pipe, which was passed from one Rotary Club to another across the US, Canada and around the world. The idea came about when Jewett Fulton of the Rotary Club of Keokuk sailed to Vienna in 1931, where he found the situation in Europe a little tense. Thus, the idea of passing the symbolic Peace Pipe around the world was born.
N K Gopinath, a former president of Rotary Club of Madras said Rotary Club of Keokuk wrote the letter to 500 clubs across the globe. “In India, Rotary Clubs of Calcutta and Madras received the communication. Rotary Club of Madras responded to the missive assuring that we are with them in 1932,” he said.