Service Above Self: Back to the future

By Kitt Brand on November 26, 2024.

You have just stepped into a Time Machine. The year is 1905. There is no Rotary helping in the world. That is about to change.

A socially shy, yet successful Illinois lawyer invites three friends to his office. They discuss how they can use their resources and influence to benefit the world. They name their group Rotary because they rotate meetings among each other’s businesses. Emerging from an era of business corruption and political scandals in North America, they set ethical goals:

1. Of the things we think, say, and do, Is it the Truth?

2. Is it Fair to all concerned? 3. Will it build Good Will and Better Friendships?

3. Will it be Beneficial to all concerned? (The Four-Way Test).

“Radical,” you say. And yet, the idea of an ethical service club attracted like-minded people around the world. By 1918, the concept had spread to Alberta, where records show 15 professionals were chartered as The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat to help their growing community of 10,000.

They faced an immediate challenge: the Spanish Flu, which raged 1918-1919. Meetings were cancelled; masks were mandatory. In response, Medicine Hat Rotarians made it their mission to provide hospital nurses with daily country outings by car.

Suddenly aware of other pressing community health needs, the club worked with the school board to provide dental care for students. Participating dentists donated one hour per week minimum for a full year. Then, continuing the community focus, the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat raised $2,000 ($35,977 today) for the installation of an elevator in the city’s hospital so patients no longer had to be transported between floors up and down stairs on stretchers.

In the “2024 Future”: Rotarians continue meeting community health problems, now co-ordinating with director Heather Bach and the Medicine Hat & District Health Foundation to meet urgent needs, most recently through a winter clothing drive providing cold weather protective coats, boots, scarves, toques and gloves.

In addition, the club’s Interact youth group at Medicine Hat High School, among its own projects, raised funds to refurbish and decorate a children’s area at the Medicine Hat Hospital. They also attracted donations to provide polio vaccines around the world with their Purple Pinkie Project.

Back to the past

The second challenge the fledging Rotary Club faced at its conception in 1918 was the Great War. Medicine Hat had lost a great many of its sons.

In response, even before the end of the war, Rotarians contributed to the Victory Loan campaign to both bring Medicine Hat soldiers home and to provide rehabilitation. Then in 1921, in a three-day blitz, the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat raised the last $1,500 ($26,380 today) needed for the Citizen War Memorial, known today as the Cenotaph.

This memorial remains the centre for Remembrance Day ceremonies. In a more recent venture, some club members helped the Royal United Services Institute honour the First World War’s 175th Battalion and Third Canadian Mounted Rifles recruited in the city 1915-1917.

Their tribute, a hillside ground display, is visible from the Trans-Canada Highway on the west side of the city heading toward Redcliff. Both projects in grateful memory of the area’s war soldiers are now managed by the City of Medicine Hat, which the club thanks.

Since 1918 through today, the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat has remained steadfast in its commitment to help wherever need arises.