Rotary Club THE WOMEN PRESIDENTS OF THE SOUTH BAY'S ROTARY CLUBS
whose father was once the Manhattan Beach Rotary Club's president. “There was this stigma that it was your father's or your grandfather's club.”
She's not wrong. While the Rotary Club was founded in 1905, it wasn't until 1987 that women were granted membership. Since then, women have been steadily joining the ranks.
And that's a good thing, said Hemmat-Lupercio, the current Manhattan Beach Rotary president.
“Women know how to multitask,” Hemmat-Lupercio said.
Hemmat-Lupercio is the mother of a 5-year-old Manhattan Beach student in transitional kindergarten and the owner of two restaurants, Lido di Manhattan Restaurant and Playa Hermosa Fish & Oyster. She also runs a catering company, works in real estate, fosters dogs, and manages to get her daughter to all her gymnastics, dance and swim activities.
“It is a lot of work to be a president on top of a job and family,” HemmatLupercio said. “But we're women, we're moms — we know how to handle multiple things at a time.” What is Rotary?
With the motto “Service before self,” Rotary Club is a volunteer-run organization known for its commitment to causes such as peace, providing clean water, maternal and child health, education, and growing local economies.
It is generally made up of local business owners and leaders, though anyone interested in public service can join ,provided they are invited by a member.
In the South Bay, local Rotary Clubs have spearheaded various community service projects, from installing a Peace Pole at Redondo Union High School to raising more than $70,000 for Palos Verdes Peninsula families who lost their homes in last year's landslides.
Rotarians have also provided prescription eyeglasses to children across the South Bay and organized the P.S. I Love You Foundation's “Day at the Beach,” which brought hundreds of inner-city kids to the beach.
“Rotary is there to help the community,” Parton Rosas said.
“Whatever that help looks like, whether it is cleaning up Crenshaw or helping or reading to kids in the schools, we just want to help.”
Rotary members can also take part in service trips internationally, doing everything from distributing prenatal vitamins to women in South America to distributing supplies and food to orphans with disabilities in the Phillippines.
There is also a social element to being in Rotary, since building camaraderie is an important aspect of the club.
Members meet weekly and plan social events, fundraisers and service projects that run throughout the year.
“It's more than friendship,” Hemmat-Lupercio said. “I think it's family. I always refer to my club as my Rotary family. We take care of each other.”
How women paved way
LeeAnn Robinson, founder of Camp Inspiration.
It was a Rotary Club in Duarte that challenged the status quo by admitting women into its club in 1977, despite rules that only male members were allowed.
This “violation” caused Rotary International to revoke the local club's charter. In response, the club filed a lawsuit claiming Rotary should abide by California's Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, gender, religion or ethnic origin.
The Duarte club — which was later dubbed “the mouse that roared” — won the case, but Rotary International appealed. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1987 that women must be allowed entrance into Rotary.
It didn't take long for things to change. By the end of that year, Sylvia Whitlock of the Rotary Club of Duarte became the first female Rotary Club president.
“Service was what our club was interested in,” Whitlock said in a podcast on peacepodcast.org. “The more people who could perform service, the better.”
By 1990, 20,000 women had joined the club. By 2010, there were 195,000. And today, about 400,000 out of 1.4 million Rotary members worldwide are women.
For the most part, the women were welcomed by their male Rotarians.
“When I joined, not only was I one of the youngest in the group of very few women, but here I was a young, corporate executive walking into a roomful of men,” said Parton Rosas, who joined the club in 1997 at the age of 30. “But they all just respected the heck out of me and were great mentors for me throughout the years.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Rotary International President-elect Stephanie Urchick, a Pennsylvania Rotarian who will soon oversee the club globally.
“My gender was never a barrier to taking on increasingly larger roles and responsibilities,” said Urchick, who will be the second woman ever to hold the position when she takes office in September. “Today, our clubs exist in many different formats and styles, and they're working to mirror our communities in terms of gender, age, culture, socioeconomic status and so many different characteristics.”
Victoria Perez-Thacker, 30, is the president of the Palos Verdes Sunset Rotary Club and is the youngest of the South Bay Rotary leaders. She said it was the women who joined before her who gave her the confidence to step up to the role.
“There are definitely women trailblazers who paved the path,” said PerezThacker, who started Rotary in high school with the club's youth-led iteration, called Interact, and continued the tradition in college.
“With all the women presidents in the South Bay, it's a little less of a closed door.”