World Community Service

About World Community Service (WCS)

A World Community Service project is born when Rotary clubs from two or more countries join together to accomplish a community service project. The WCS program links Rotary clubs needing extra help with clubs in other countries that are willing to provide funds, materials, and technical and professional assistance. The World Community Service program was officially launched in 1967. Since then, thousands of WCS projects involving Rotarians around the world have been completed.

Each year, Rotary clubs provide an estimated US$26 million in funds and supplies.

World Community Service projects have three criteria.

• The project must be humanitarian in nature.
• Rotarians in two or more Rotary countries must be involved.
• One of the participating countries must contain the site of the project.

About the District World Community Service Committee

The District World Community Service Committee has been created to promote, inform and educate Rotarians about World Community Service efforts in our District. The committee is comprised of 15 Rotarians from across the District who meet monthly to discuss matters concerning World Community Service. Each member on the committee takes responsibility to work with several clubs. The role is to assist by providing information about possible projects, advise on how to go about forming a relationship with an international partner, help with the formulation of matching grant applications to various sources available to our clubs, and where possible make presentations to Clubs on Rotary's world community service efforts and international priorities.

The DWCSC is strictly advisory and educational. Many well-informed clubs need little assistance from DWCSC as they proceed with their international work. The Committee holds an annual day-long workshop, usually in the Spring or Fall, for all clubs in the District. It is particularly targeted at the Club International Director and his/her committee but all Rotarians with an interest in international project work are welcome to attend. This provides an opportunity to learn a great deal about all aspects of getting involved in international programs.

The Committee maintains an interactive database of all international projects being carried out in the District. Clubs are asked to enter new projects on the database, and to update information about projects at least every 6 months. This database is used to prepare the annual report to the District on World Community Service projects. Any Club wishing advice or help in entering the data is invited to contact the Committee’s webmaster Roger Hough email.

Rotarians are welcome to attend the bi-monthly meetings of the committee. The Chair can be contacted for dates of meetings.

The current Chair of DWCSC is Bob Wiens who can be reached at email.