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Born during the Calvin Coolidge administration, the Rotary Club of Hollister just marked its 100th birthday with a party.
The Hollister chapter of Rotary International, which was chartered on May 11, 1925, is one of the oldest in the global organization founded in Chicago in 1905.
The centennial was celebrated with a dinner at Swank Farms Barn on May 16, which longtime Rotary of Hollister member and former president Larry Barr said was “very well attended.”
“There were over 100 people from all over the district that came and joined,” he said.
Current club president Bill Baker said Rotary members, former club presidents, club district governors and local government officials were all present.
“[California Assembly Speaker] Robert Rivas gave a talk,” Baker said. “We also received commendations from the Board of Supervisors and the mayor.”
In its century-long tenure, the Rotary Club of Hollister has been dedicated to Rotary International’s mission which, according to its website, is to “provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.”
The club has accomplished a variety of local and global philanthropic missions from funding local scholarships and supporting local nonprofits to providing resources for third world countries.
Among its main initiatives is providing scholarships to high school students to help with college expenses. Barr said that serving the local youth is one of the things he is most proud of.
“We’ve given out 91 scholarships in the last three years,” he said. “And each one of those were a minimum of $1,000. In the last 100 years, we’ve donated over a million dollars to students in this particular area.”
Baker said last year alone, the club awarded $31,000 in scholarships, along with a special $30,000 grant to a past graduate. It has also supported students by sponsoring them to attend a leadership camp, and by creating a Rotaract Club, a youth-led program at Hollister High School.
In 2004, the Rotary Club of Hollister also started the “Student of the Month” program at Hollister High, which recognizes two students selected by the counseling staff—one male and one female—each month. Two female and two male students are selected at random at the end of the year to win an Apple iPad, Barr said.
Every January, the club has also held the Mission 10 Race fundraiser—several races which start at the San Juan Bautista Mission.
“There is a short race for children around town, there is a 5K, and then there’s a 10K which goes back into the hills,” Baker said.
He also said this past race, the 41st annual Mission 10 Race, brought in more than 900 participants and raised close to $30,000 “for that one day.”
“Almost everybody in the club gets involved,” Baker said. “It’s a big effort.”
The club also runs a concession stand at the San Benito County Saddle Horse Show and Rodeo every June, selling beer, wine and margaritas to raise funds. It has also helped the community by building the clubhouse at the Bolado Golf Course and the helipad at Hazel Hawkins Hospital.
On the international stage, the club has contributed to building schools in the Philippines and has distributed wheelchairs in Mexico, both of which Barr participated in.
“We have had four members of the club travel to Mexico City to hand out wheelchairs that our club helped pay for,” Barr said. “One of our members has traveled literally all over the world delivering wheelchairs to those in need; places like the Philippines, Romania, Croatia, Panama, and Serbia are a few of the countries. We are planning another distribution to Jakarta, Indonesia in January or February.”
As club president (his term ends July 1, 2026), Baker said his objective is to increase the club’s membership.
“We started the year with 49 members,” he said. “I would like to see us finish the year in the 60s.”
To address this issue, the club started creating stronger programs during its weekly meetings, with guest speakers such as Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who spoke at the Aug. 11 club meeting, and Rivas, who “said he would come back” to be a guest speaker, Baker said.
It also changed a monthly lunchtime meeting to a night meeting “to accommodate people who cannot make a lunch meeting,” Baker said.
Barr said Rotary clubs in the U.S. have seen a significant drop in membership in the past 20 years, and the Hollister club has been affected as well.
“The first time I was the president, I had 125 active members,” said Barr, who led the club for the 2004-05 and 2024-25 terms.
“Last year, there were 53 members. And we dropped a bunch of members this year before Bill took over; we have two new members now, so we’re back up to 51.”
Barr attributes this decline to a change in lifestyle for today’s young adults.
“The young kids today are so intense on getting ahead that they do things like go into work early and work late,” he said. “They don’t take lunch breaks. It’s a conflict for young kids today, especially when they have a home that costs them about $750,000.”
Originally, the club met every Monday from noon to 1 p.m. at Paine’s Restaurant in Hollister.
Baker said he hopes prospective members will see the benefits of becoming a member of the club.
“The meetings are fun, the club projects are fun, and the social activities are certainly fun,” he said. “For a businessperson, the benefit is that you get to meet a lot of people that you normally wouldn’t meet. Rotary is all about service. We don’t have any secrets or handshakes. We are all about service to the community.”
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