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Membership is down, but the Farmers Branch Rotary Club hopes to change that.
Members see hope for the future in the younger generations and invest time and money to help children succeed.
The group, which has gotten smaller over the last few years and since the Covid-19 pandemic in particular, was founded in 1986, but now struggles to find new members.
The average age of a Rotarian is 58 to 62 years old, said Vince Montenegro, president of the “small but mighty” Farmers Branch chapter.
“I think everyone in Rotary is concerned about membership,” he said. “There’s a lot of competing factors on an individual’s life.”
The Farmers Branch Rotary Club, as well as its sister organization the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club, is a service organization that serves the local community.
The Farmers Branch club focuses on youth and veterans, serving Farmers Branch by providing Christmas presents to 25-30 families in need at Vivian Field Middle School, serving food for local veterans on Veterans Day and providing scholarships for college and the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards camp.
“I think that’s the key to it all,” Montenegro said, “helping others, and especially kids.”
Rotarians, as they are called, are looking for people looking for opportunities to serve the community, and Montenegro, principal at Maverick Financial, said it’s an excellent way to network with other community business leaders.
“As a business organization, you’re only going to work with people you know, like or trust,” he said.
He said the pandemic changed the fabric of society so that even video calls have made it so people aren’t as likely to show their faces, contributing to the isolation many feel. He said he thinks society is more lacking in collaboration than it was before the pandemic and hopes people see Rotary as an avenue to change that and work together.
Dr. Stephanie Jimenez, former president of the Farmers Branch Rotary and principal at Newman Smith High School, said she loves Rotary.
“It’s a place where you can place the deposit on the return on your life,” she said.
The Farmers Branch Rotary works with counselors at Vivian Field Middle School to identify a small, under-served population who would most benefit from receiving presents at the holidays. In addition to toys, the rotary provides shoes, coats and clothing.
The Farmers Branch Rotary also awards scholarships, which Montenegro said are typically $500 each to high school seniors who write an essay based on Rotary International’s Four-Way Test, which the organization uses as its guiding principles.
The club teams up with the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary for its biggest youth project of the year: providing scholarships for Rotary Youth Leadership Award camp, which is held in June for students finishing their junior years of high school.
Students interested in the program fill out applications, write essays and then interview for 10-12 positions at the weeklong program in Mansfield.
“We ask them a barrage of questions, and we take those who we feel would do the best at the leadership camp,” Montenegro said.
The club drives students to camp on Sunday and picks them up the following Friday.
For Veteran’s Day, the Farmers Branch Rotary Club will team up with The Branch Connection to cook and serve hot dogs for local veterans, said Matt Rice, who is vice chair of the Farmers Branch Senior Advisory Board. In addition, a special guest will speak and a brass band will perform.
