By Jessika Hane
As a mom of four little kids, I wanted to find a better way to share the joy of Rotary with my children. My Rotary club, Bloomington Sunrise, Indiana, USA, is an amazing club – friendly, welcoming and supportive of women and their families. It also meets at 7:30 a.m.!
This was great in my 20’s and 30’s when I was building my career, but really difficult with kids in elementary school.
Our kids loved going to the annual Rotary holiday party and the occasional family-friendly picnic or Rotary sponsored event. But I wanted my kids to really know Rotary. I wanted them to know that being a Rotary club member means helping others and serving our community, that it is also a great way to make friends and develop lifelong skills. I wanted them to actually have a chance to perform hands-on service. And, I wanted to be able to do that with them.
My goal was to form a Family Service club.
But I didn’t want to start from scratch. I wanted the leadership and wisdom that came with my home club. I did not want to leave behind the club members who supported me as a young Rotarian, as a club president, and as a district governor. I wanted to add to, not take away from the diversity of our club.
To my delight, our club agreed to sponsor a family service satellite club. A satellite club provided me with the support I needed in the following ways:
- We only needed to find eight new members, not the 25 required to start a new club.
- We did not need to form our own board (I serve as Satellite Club Chair and sit on the Bloomington Sunrise Board as our representative).
- We can keep our dues affordable by only charging for RI and District dues. Our home club treasurer creates and manages our invoicing and reporting.
- We also offer a unique second option of attendance for our current members, plus more ways to serve.
We chartered in the summer of 2024. We are approaching our one-year anniversary. It’s been a great year. We chartered with 10 primary members (nine new Rotarians and me). When you include spouses and kids, our small but mighty group includes 19 adults and 23 kids.
We have one service project each month and one meeting/social. We don’t typically have speakers at our meetings, but we do meet at a kid-friendly play space so the kids can run around and the grownups can visit. This non-traditional club format is just what our members want. They lead busy lives, full of work, school, and kids activities. They don’t want to meet each week. As natural leaders and doers, our parent members love being able to show up with their kids and serve others.
Over the past year, our satellite club has completed over 300 hours of service. We have:
- Packaged chocolate chip pancake mix into family-sized servings (this was messy)
- Sorted and organized over 6,000 pounds of canned and boxed food
- Pulled invasive weeds and cleaned birdhouses
- Assembled bead kits for teachers, sorted school supplies, and counted out thousands of teaching supplies into classroom sized bundles
- Packed oatmeal, cereal, and trail mix into weekend portions for kids
- Served as extras in a non-profit film (we are great at walking, then standing, then walking again)
We’ve also shared snacks and celebrated together with an annual holiday party of our very own. It’s been a delight, connecting with other parents, seeing our kids grow in height and in heart.
The Family Service Satellite Club of Bloomington Sunrise has fulfilled my Rotary dream of being able to share the love of Rotary with our kids. I’m so thankful to my club (and my husband, who of course is also a Rotarian!) for supporting this vision.
If you’d like to learn more about our club, please reach out to me and check out our website.
Jessika Hane has been a Rotarian for over 17 years and served as governor in District 6580 in 2020-2021. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana, with her husband, Bryan, and their four kids.
https://blog.rotary.org/2025/05/13/family-service-satellite-club-is-kid-friendly/