Carolyn Mullin is one of the longest active service members of the Rotary Club of Fonthill. Like many members of the club, she joined by invitation from a Rotarian. It was 1997 and Mullin was the first managing editor at the newly formed Voice of Pelham and she thought the networking opportunities would prove invaluable.
“We'd started the newspaper in town and I was trying to get to know as many people as many activities and I was invited to join,” she said, adding “I joined and never look back.”
“I joined in my 20s so it's basically like half of my life has been Rotary,” she noted.
She shared how people joked that she had been bribed to join the club by member, Doug Burr, who owned the local Tim Hortons locations in town, who would come into the newspaper offices with peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies.
Mullin explained how new members learn that the Rotary Club was more than just a local service club – it is also an international organization.
She recalled how for the 100th anniversary of Rotary Clubs, the Fonthill chapter numbering around 25 to 30 people, raised more than $100,000 within a year.
Another big undertaking she was proud of was the effort to get new uniforms for the E.L. Crossley Secondary School marching band and new instruments as well.
“That was a really big undertaking,” she said, adding “if you ever see them out in the community, they still they have the Rotary on their flag when they're performing.”
Mullin said raising all that money was “really a pride moment” for her because of all the work that went into the effort.
“We went door to door, we wrote some grants, we collaborated,” she explained.
“We didn't raise a hundred thousand all by ourselves. It was a community endeavour, it was a partnership endeavour,” she said.
Mullin compared it to the way Rotary clubs around the world come together to work towards certain issues – currently one such project is to purchase x-ray machines for hospitals in Bolivia – to how local service clubs co-operate for the greater good.
“As this little group of individuals, sometimes we feel a little bit overwhelmed with some of the service projects and things that we do but we are part of that broader community, not, just with Rotary International but within our own community,” said Mullin.
For example, for Summerfest, the Rotary Club worked with the local Lions and Lionesses and the Kinsmen.
“We're all participating. We come together. We're, helping volunteer for various activities,” she said.
Mullin said she kept coming back and participating in the club, because of the way the club members supported each other.
She recalled how, when she was serving as club president, she also dealing with the premature birth of her daughter. Mullin shared a memory of bringing her daughter to the club meetings and having a fellow Rotarian holding her in the back.
“There were times when I'd bring Alex with me to the meeting. I Brought both of my girls to different meetings at different times. But, you know, another rotarian would be holding her in the back — holding and bouncing her up and down and keeping her happy.”
She added that her parents were both very involved in the church and the community.
“Both of my parents were very involved in community and church and they were like I just didn't know any other way,” she said. “Being able to have that collegiality, having that friendliness, and being able to do good in our community, to do good in the world all those sorts of things that are important to me.”
Currently, Mullin is the Director of Strategic Partnerships, Research & Innovation at Niagara College, and a board member at Innovate Niagara.
