St. Cloud Rotary Club Celebrates 100 Years of Service, Community Impact at Historic Paramount Center

(KNSI)—St. Cloud’s Rotary Club celebrated a century of service at the Paramount Center for the Arts, where the group held its first meeting in 1925 when it was known as the Breen Hotel.

Over the years, more than 500 people have joined the group, which today has around 125 members and is the third-largest in the state.

Mike Mullin has been coming to meetings for 43 years and says the organization started in Chicago and then extended to Devils Lake, North Dakota, along the Red River Ox Cart Trail. For reasons unknown, they came back east to St. Cloud to start a chapter. Mullin tells KNSI News that community service is at the heart of what they do. “We want to make the world a better place. And so things like Lake George, the Cop House, Youth Experiencing Homelessness, our preschool program that we have in concert with District 742. And just a host of other things that we do in the community and around the world.”

Fifteen years ago, Rotary spent $21 million to renovate Eastman Park around Lake George, creating the Summertime by George free concert series. Rotary also sponsors two parks, clean water projects in the Dominican Republic, the eradication of polio worldwide, and scholarships for young people to attend college.

Club President Ken Bellicot says they never stop supporting each other and told KNSI News their next project is standing up two new Cop Houses. “We just recently approved a grant pledge over three years of $200,000 to those initiatives, for which they’re opening two outposts on the east side this summer.”

St. Cloud Mayor Jake Anderson read a proclamation declaring Sunday, April 27th, as Rotary Day in the city. That’s the date the first meeting took place. Anderson told KNSI News he tips his hat to the organization. “These are the events you want to be mayor for, to come out and be positive and recognize the achievements of groups in their long-standing efforts to deliver for the community. Because, without clubs like the Rotary, St. Cloud isn’t what it is today and won’t be what it could be in the future.”

Learn more about the organization and how to become a member by clicking here.

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