Then and Now: Rotary International’s Boys’ Week

Rotary International was founded in Chicago in 1905 to bring together professionals for camaraderie and public service. Until the late 1980s, Rotary was open only to men. Mentoring boys from school to work was an early goal and the Rotary Club in New York started an annual week of activities dedicated to teen boys in 1920.

Spokane’s Rotary group held its first Boys’ Week in the spring of 1922. The week of activities took teen boys out of school for a variety of theme events. Rotary, the Boy Scouts and other service clubs pitched in to plan sporting events, patriotic ceremonies, concerts and a downtown parade in which any boy, usually between 12 and 16 years old, could join. Each weekday had a theme. Sunday was usually called Boys’ Day in Church. Another was Boys’ Day at Home, where boys were expected to help around the house while mothers were asked to serve a formal family meal. Other days were assigned to citizenship, industrial arts and sports.

By the mid 1920s, Boys Week was in 1,400 communities. In 1926, Spokane’s Soroptimist club, a women’s service group, started a similar event for girls, as many other communities were doing. Boys and Girls Week, later called Youth Activities Week, continued through World War II, and later on a smaller scale.

Kendrick Guernsey, of the Boys and Girls Week Committee, wrote in 1945, “Boys and Girls Week is not an end. It is a means. It is a vivid way to awaken men and women to their responsibilities to boys and girls and to opportunities of working for and with them. It visualizes for thousands of adults their personal obligation to help youth develop good citizenship.”

Rotary International continues to mentor teens today through their teen club, called Interact, student exchange programs, youth leadership awards and scholarships.

Jesse Tinsley