The Scrapbooks, 1922-2014, include: reports, correspondence, newsletters, meeting programs, ribbons, newspaper clippings, and photographs documenting the history, members, presidents, projects, and activities of the Rotary Club (Mount Pleasant, Mich.) and its members. The Scrapbooks mostly have wooden covers. Each Scrapbook is held together by three large bolts and nuts. Additional materials (Box 7), 2007-2008, include loose assignment, roster, and project papers. The collection is ongoing.
Organizational History:
The Rotary Club (Mount Pleasant, Mich.) held its organizational meeting on April 27, 1925, which included dinner at the Park Hotel. Members of the Midland and Bay City Rotary clubs offered a program. Afterwards, the Mount Pleasant Rotary Club was organized with 24 charter members.
The Club’s first regular meeting was held on May 4, 1925. Joseph Schnitzler served as the first president, 1925-1926. Other officers who served during that first year included: Vice President E. C. Warriner, Secretary C. B. Hawkins, Treasurer W. D. Hood, and Directors G. E. Ganiard and W. K. Willman.
Originally, the Club’s major emphasis was serving disabled children in Isabella County. Over the years, Club has served the Mount Pleasant area in many ways. One of the Club’s earliest actions of long-term impact, was keeping Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant. After CMU’s Old Main (administration) building burned down in 1925, the possibility of moving the college to another town was widely discussed. The Club rallied successfully to keep CMU in Mount Pleasant.
The Club’s many Hands On Projects have included saving the County Courthouse Cupola, now located at the County Fairgrounds north of Mount Pleasant, a fitness/exercise trail, benches and trees in parks, Island Park’s gazebo, an observation platform in Millpond Park, and cleaning up the Chippewa River at Meridian Park.
The Club also helped create free clinics for disabled children, and helped support Central Michigan Community Hospital and Central Michigan Mental Health Clinic. The Club has paid for children to attend CMU’s Speech and Hearing Summer Clinics and supported Hospice, Women’s Aid Support, and the Health-Hunger-Humanity Program.
Among the many youth programs the Club has supported over the years are a Boy Scout Troop, leadership camps at Camp Rotary and Wolverine Boys’ and Girls’ State in Lansing, raising funds for college scholarships, Community Stadium, anti-drugs and substance abuse programs, care for children of migrant workers, promoting a bicycle safety program, and providing medical care for the indigent. The Club has also hosted over 34 exchange students from overseas.
The Club’s current annual fund raisers include the Apple Project and Beef Dinners.
The Club’s occasional bulletin is called the Rotary Round-up, which is separately cataloged as a periodical.
