Volunteer service opportunities are available to our members in all of these projects. Contact a board member or committee chair for more information.

 

Emergency Services Day: Honoring local first responders for heroic acts. Every year, we recognize first responders from the San Francisco Fire Department, the San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, and the local US Coast Guard at a special luncheon. Throughout the years, our club has honored a range of local first responders, including park rangers, 911 Emergency Services, and healthcare workers, who all contribute to our city's support network.

 

We assemble hundreds of shiny new bicycles at our annual Bike Build and give them to third and fourth graders from local elementary schools along with helmets, locks, and safety instruction from the San Francisco Police Department.

 

We collaborate with other organizations to make life better for many different kinds of San Franciscans:

 

We participate in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s with several other local Rotary Clubs.

 

We have been committed to the eradication of Polio ever since Rotary International launched Polio Plus in 1985, when there were 1,000 new cases of polio every day. There were only 12 cases of wild polio in the world in 2023.

 

We provide free surgeries to children with cleft lip and cleft palate work performed by Alliance for Smiles and Rotaplast International. In addition to supporting them financially, our members participate in their international surgical missions. Alliance for Smiles and Rotaplast International are corporate members of the Rotary Club of San Francisco..

 

We collaborate with the First Five Rotary Clubs in the world to provide education, screening, and treatment to women in the city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, who are at risk of cervical cancer or who have early cervical cancer. The First Five Rotary Clubs are Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

 

We partner with the Rotary Club of San Francisco Castro and the Rotary Club of Phnom Penh to train Cambodian nurses, doctors, and physical therapist to manage dysphagia (swallowing impairment) for adult patients with neurological disorders including stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, and dementia.

 

We support Building Education in their mission eradicate extreme poverty in Nepal by constructing 1,000 schools and delivering education, with an ultimate goal of transforming rural villages and impoverished regions into thriving, dignified communities.

 

We are the lead sponsors of Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA), a youth leadership camp experience for rising sophomores, juniors and seniors in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties. RYLA does not require any leadership experience and – thanks to the generosity of Rotarians – is free for all students. About 150 students attend the five-day camp held in July near Santa Cruz. 40 Rotarians and friends volunteer as RYLA team facilitators and staff administrators, with help from 20 RYLA student alumni. Many campers share that RYLA is transformative, empowering, fun, and one of the best experiences of their lives.

 

 

We provide scholarships to graduating seniors in Interact and Rotaract Clubs, and to RYLA alumni to support their college education.

 

We partner with the Rotary of Sinkor, Monrovia, Liberia to provide solar power to the LEAD Monrovia Football Academy. With reliable electric power, students enjoy a cooler learning environment, more instruction time, and regular use of technology. This improves health, wellbeing, and student learning outcomes.

 

As one of the first Rotary Clubs in the world to include DEI on its board, we work to ensure that good practice in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is woven into the fabric of everything we do.

 

We encourage members to share their family traditions, celebrations, and rituals at luncheon meetings and at social events. We have celebrated Chinese New Year, Diwali, and Passover together. We have heard about growing up in Japan, migrating from India, being part of a family that has been in the US since the 17^th Century, and more.

 

We sponsor a DEI Film Festival, which features movies and videos that reflect the wealth of diversity in the world. Recent films include Amistad and Loving.

 

We work with the staff and participants (adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities) of The Arc San Francisco to provide entrepreneurial training for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to help them realize their dreams.

 

Our Rotary Means Business program provides business networking opportunities for our members and their friends.

 

We provide leadership training to our members and to members of local Interact and Rotaract clubs.

 

Our Club was a founding member of the Rotary Climate Action Team (RCAT), which addresses the climate crisis. Now comprised of hundreds of Rotary Clubs around the world, RCAT fosters Action Teams, educates Rotarians about the climate crisis, shares projects and contacts in the Rotary world, and links to multiple resources across Rotary and with Rotary partners.

 

We partner with the Rotary Club of Ankara-Bahcelievler to revitalize the local dairy industry through cheese production, rebuilding the local dairy industry in Kahramanmaras, which was substantially impacted by the recent major earthquake in Türkiye. The project will create a more vibrant, sustainable, and equitable dairy industry in the region.

 

Working with a number of Rotary Clubs around the world, we support the work of Jerusalem Peacebuilders, which brings together Jewish and Arab teachers and students from various locations in Israel to a safe place where they can address the inequalities and communal traumas of these different populations.