The Rotary Club of Manila

Rotary was almost fourteen years old when Leon J. Lambert, then one of the leading businessmen of Manila and president of Lambert Sales Co., inspired by what he had heard of Rotary, started to correspond with President John Poole of the International Association of Rotary Clubs, now known as Rotary International.

As a result, on January 12, 1919, Lambert entertained Rotarian Roger D. Pinneo, a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle who had been sent to Manila with a commission to assist in the organization of Rotary Clubs in the Far East, at a luncheon in his home in Pasay with Messrs. E. E. Elser, James Geary, A. W. Beam and F. N. Berry, prominent businessmen of Manila. The five constituted themselves into a committee to proceed with the preliminary steps incident to the organization of a Rotary club. Lambert was elected as chairman, and Berry as secretary of this committee. (Read More)