Spanish-language Rotary Club forms in Salt Lake

It's official. After months of preparation Utah's first-of-its-kind Spanish-language Rotary Club held its charter meeting on Thursday.

"There are only a handful of Hispanic Rotary clubs in the United States," said Dr. Cesar Diaz, president of the Rotary Club of Hispano-Latinos of Salt Lake.

The new service club will provide an opportunity for Rotarians to reach out to the state's growing Hispanic community, said Julio Garreaud, organizer of international service projects.

"The idea is to create a liaison between the Spanish community and the American community," he said. "This is about bringing people together."

It's also about bringing different Latin American cultures together.

"I am from Chile," he said. "People from Latin America hang around people from their own country. The idea is to mix them together as a Latin American culture."

The new club has been in the formative stages since last summer and has been a provisional club since September. The club's charter was approved earlier this year by Rotary International, and Thursday's meeting at the Wells Fargo Building provided ceremonial acknowledgement.

And, while the club's service mission is oriented toward the Latino community and the founding members are mostly immigrants from Latin America, non-Latinos are welcome, Garreaud said. He added that being a Rotarian is not for everyone. Members must have the resources to be able to donate time and money.

"It's a very demanding organization from the point of view of time and resources," he said.

There are more than 32,000 Rotary clubs worldwide with 1.2 million members. In Utah, there are 45 clubs with 2,000 members, said Gene Banks, district governor for Utah.

The new club was formed, Banks said, after Rotarians approached both the Hispanic and Latino chambers of commerce to explore ways to increase participation by Hispanics.

Culturally the club is unique, he said, noting that the meetings are held in the evenings, which is common in Latin America. The meetings also are conducted in Spanish.

The fledgling club already has worked on service projects. At Christmas the group donated toys to 3,000 needy Latino families. And, in cooperation with the Murray club, it has donated bikes to children.

They are working on a project to bring school supplies to Cuba, something that requires careful negotiations given the current political situation.

"This is what they devised," Banks said. "They've already done some projects and have some in the works that are so unique and so different."

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