A Nod to Youth
Service groups, the backbones of Butler County communities for decades, are having to adapt to a new landscape to ensure they'll be around in the decades to come.
Groups such as Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis are trying to attract new members, especially younger people.
“If we try to do things the way we've done it for years and years and years, we're going to shrivel up and die,” said Ken Fleeson, president of Rich-Mar Rotary.
That could be what happened to the Butler Kiwanis which folded in 2012 after 90 years in existence.
Rotary International has taken a proactive approach to getting new members by allowing its clubs to relax some of their rules, Rotary leaders say.
Fleeson said Rotarians used to be bound by attendance requirements at weekly meetings. Now Rotary International allows clubs to meet only twice a month and supplement meetings with attendance at other Rotary gatherings and events.
“Rather than asking for 100 percent attendance, they're asking for 100 percent engagement,” Fleeson said.
Rich-Mar Rotary has about 60 members and is the second-largest club in its district, which covers Mars, Adams Township, Middlesex Township and Richland Township in Allegheny County.
Members meet every Wednesday at lunchtime in the Treesdale Golf and Country Club, 1 Arnold Palmer Drive, Gibsonia.
In addition to organizing the annual Mars Applefest event, Rich-Mar Rotary also has a pancake breakfast in November to fund its scholarship programs for graduating seniors at Mars and Pine-Richland high schools.
The move away from meetings is what might draw in younger members. Rotary International also encouraged clubs to do more electronically and put more of a focus on service and less focus on the meetings and social gatherings.
“Life is changed in that there are more two wage-earner families and more people cherish time with their children,” said Bob Raub, the public relations coordinator for the Pennsylvania District of Kiwanis International.
“Younger people want to engage in organizations differently,” said Jeff Simmons, a Zelienople Rotarian.
The younger generation is more interested in doing service projects and being hands-on in their communities, and they're less interested in attending a lot of meetings, Simmons said.
To attract younger members, the Zelienople Rotary hosts youth programs to get children interested and involved with Rotary. The club also hosts the Interact Club at Seneca Valley High School and the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards program for teenagers and young people.
Rich-Mar Rotary is working to start a satellite club aimed at young adults with families that would have its own flexible meeting schedule and service projects. One month they may meet in person, another month they may meet online or for happy hour after work, Fleeson said.
“The objective is to find younger people who want to get involved in Rotary, but don't have the time to give to the formal Rotary Club,” Fleeson said. “Then the ultimate goal is these individuals, as their lifestyles change and as they have more free time, they might make themselves as part of our club.”
Cranberry Township has had enough interest in Rotary to support two clubs — the Sunrise Rotary and the Noon Rotary — named after their weekly meeting times. Shavonne Ayres, president of the Noon Rotary that has 32 members, said she'd had five people join since she started her term as president last summer.
Three were invited by friends in the Rotary and two emailed Ayres out of the blue to join. Gaining new members is heartening, but the club always can use more. The club is working on creating different types of memberships that would provide people more flexibility in how much they attend meetings.Ayres said there's a misconception that Rotary is a service group just for men. The Noon Rotary has a large number of female members, Ayres said.“We're trying to engage more women,” she said. “People think it's a bunch of older men that sit around and eat lunch.”They do a lot more than eat lunch, although they do meet weekly on Tuesdays for lunch at the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA.The Noon Rotary has events throughout the year to fund service projects, and hosted a suicide prevention and awareness walk in the fall that raised more than $8,000 for local mental health organizations.The Rotarians in Butler have also split into two groups.Millie Pinkerton is president of the PM Rotary Club, whose 28 members meet at the YWCA at 5:30 p.m. the second and fourth Mondays of the month.Pinkerton said, “The Rotary Club of Butler is the official name but we added the PM because we have a morning club now and a lot of people were confused.”“When Dale Pinkerton was the district governor in 1998, he saw a need for a morning club for the business people who couldn't make the dinner meetings.”“Lisa Campbell is in charge of the AM club. They meet Tuesday mornings at 7 a.m. at the YMCA,” Millie Pinkerton said.Campbell said the AM group's 37 members range from millennials to business professionals.According to Pinkerton, the Butler Rotary has been in operation since 1928.“It's hard to get members at times,” she said. “We get a couple every year. We are actually going to have a membership drive in March and we are going to invite people whose names we have been given or who have expressed interest in the club.”Pinkerton said, “Rotary is about service. 'Service above self.' We work to make the community a better place for the people who live there.”Local projects, building shelters and rehabilitating two city parks, as well as hiring people through Big Brothers and Big Sisters to be summer interns at the playgrounds.Campbell said AM Rotary also supports park improvement efforts. Its Feb. 10 Carved Ice fundraiser in Diamond Park raises money for those efforts.Pinkerton added since 1986 Rotary International has dedicated itself and spent $800 million to have children worldwide vaccinated against polio.Qualifications for membership are simple, she said. “You just need to have the attitude that you would rather do something for someone else rather than for yourself.”Helen Keller started the Butler Lions on their own sort of vision quest said Mike Winkler, secretary of the service club which has been meeting for 95 years. It currently boasts 54 members, Winkler said, although the rolls have swelled to as much as 88 to as little as 34.“We were founded in 1923 as a service club but one of our big causes is the visually impaired,” Winkler said. “That's since Helen Keller challenged us to be what she called 'Knights of the Blind,' and the club has kept up the mantra since.”Butler Lions work on a number of different projects with the Blind Association, including vision screening where club members take a vision scanning machine around to schools. The Lions also pay for people to have eye exams and get glasses.“We've spent over $10,000 since 2015 on eye exams, ” he said.While Winkler said it's hard to keep the Lions rolls filled, the membership requirements haven't changed since 1987 when women were allowed to join.“You have to be invited to join as well as be over 21,” said Winkler, himself a member since 1989.“We're looking for men and women who help those that are blind and help the community in the same way,” said Winkler. “I've been a Lion a long time and I feel it's a top-notch organization.”
