Our Mission Statement

The Rotary Club of Lebanon strives to align our mission and vision with the mission and vision of Rotary International.  In addition, we strive to develop the next generation of leaders through our support of our youth programs both in Lebanon and around the world.

Rotary International’s Mission Statement:

We provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.

Rotary International’s Vision Statement

President’s Greeting

2025/2026 President’s Greeting

Greetings and welcome to the Rotary Club of Lebanon

We have been serving our communities here at home and around the world for more than 100 years.

As Rotarians, we continually seek ways to make our community a better place, both locally, regionally, and internationally.

This past year under the leadership of our immediate past president, Ernst Oidtmann we supported the following projects:

• Supporting Rotary International’s priority, the eradication of polio.  Our donations were matched by the Gates Foundation 2:1. Rotary International has decreased polio worldwide by 99%.  Total eradication of the disease is within reach.
• Purchasing an alpine slide for Civic memorial Park and we then helped install all the playground element in April 2025.
• At Riverside Park, we supported the City of Lebanon by providing funds to have the picnic pavilion repainted. We purchased picnic tables for both Riverside Park and Baker’s Crossing.  These are all examples of how we support the City of Lebanon to develop a vibrant a String of Pearls, a series of parks along the Mascoma River in Lebanon.
• Finding ways to protect our environment and worked with Sustainable Lebanon to initiate Styrofoam™ Recycling.  To date we have held 4 collections.
• Getting into the Mascoma River to clean our city’s water way. This year, a full size safe was removed from the river.  Over 25 years ago, this initiative was envisioned and implemented by Ernst Oidtmann.
• Providing financial support to Lebanon High School’s Take Flight program and continue to follow the work of students who are building a single-engine airplane. A program that helps make science, technology, engineering and mathematics fun!
• Providing a personalized book for every first-grade student in Lebanon. We have done this project for over 20 years.
• Awarding $12,000 in post-secondary scholarships to graduates of Lebanon High School, Ledyard Charter School, and Mascoma Valley High School.
• Participating with Rotary clubs in our District to hold an annual speech contest for high school students.
• Sponsoring Rotary Interact (service clubs) at both Mascoma and Lebanon High Schools. Interact brings young people ages 12-18 to develop leadership skills while discovering the power of Service Above Self.  This year our two Interact Clubs partnered with the Interact Club at Windsor, VT’s High School to pack 10,000 dry vacuum-packed meals through the nonprofit Rise Against Hunger.
• Sending rising Junior high school students to our Rotary district’s annual Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA). RYLA is a core program of Rotary International, reflecting Rotary’s commitment to youth leadership development.
• Following the floods we experienced last year, we replaced toys, games and other equipment that had been destroyed by flood waters in Lebanon, Claremont and Newport locations.
• Honoring our guest speakers by donating a book to the West Lebanon’s Kilton Library Children’s Collection. Over the past 20 years, we’ve donated more than 1,000 books.
• We donated funds to upgrade and improve audio-visual equipment at Kilton Community Room.
• Supporting a variety of international projects including:
  • Focusing on drought-resistant plantings for a community in Kenya, Emmah’s Garden, by exploring water storage possibilities to extend the growing season beyond the season rains, thereby to expand food supplies.
  • Supporting the Common Man for Ukraine/Plymouth, NH Rotary to provide “boots on the ground” support aimed at Ukrainian children. The funds are being used for a trauma recovery program.
  • Providing scholarships for developmentally challenged students in El Salvador via Epilogos Charities. In addition, our donation has helped a school to hire a special education teacher.
• Supporting those in need by annually providing gifts and gift cards to support Listen Community Services’ holiday basket helpers. We spend a morning in December to make sure that every basket gift request has been fulfilled. Holding food drives at local grocery stores, receiving donations of food and/or money to help fill the food bank at Listen.  We also provide cash donations to the Listen, Upper Valley Haven and Upper Valley Senior Center food banks.
• Recognizing the crucial role played by the arts in enriching our lives. We made a substantial donation to Lebanon Opera House’s 100-year renovations and have supported LOH’s summer festival each year.  We provided funds to support the New England School of Music’s choral festival this past June and helped sustain JAG Productions during its life in the Upper Valley.  For the past two years, we supported the Upper Valley Music Center’s music in summer day camps program.
• Donating funds to the Rotary Foundation to support many projects happening around the world. Since it was founded more than 100 years ago, the Foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing, sustainable projects. With our help, we have made many lives better in our community and around the world. The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty.

Do our projects sound interesting?  Come and join us for lunch or volunteer to help us with a service project or fundraiser.

We meet for lunch at noon in the Dwinell Room at Harvest Hill behind the APD Hospital.  There we host a wide array of engaging speakers who enlighten and inspire us.

Get involved in a way the makes sense to you and see what Rotary is all about.  If you would like more info, simply email us at by clicking here

Marilyn Bedell
President 2025-2026
Rotary Club of Lebanon, New Hampshire

Marilyn Bedell
President 20254-2026
Rotary Club of Lebanon, New Hampshire

History

Established 1923

25 years….50 years……75 years …..100 years…. Now greater than 100 years old

Over 100 years of meals, songs, various meeting places, countless service projects and fundraisers.

Let’s count the various meeting places we had these past years:

We started out at the Hotel Rogers and met there for 19 years. Then it was on to the Carter Community Building. During some summers while at each of these venues we met at the Carter Country Club and had a few meetings at the Nu-Bridge Restaurant. For many years thereafter we met at Lander’s Restaurant. After Lander’s we met at several different including the Owl’s Nest Restaurant and a Chinese Restaurant before settling in at the Dwinell Room at the Harvest Hill Senior Living Complex.

• The 25th Anniversary was held on May 13, 1948, at the Lower Town Hall. The cost of the meal at $2.00
• The 50 Anniversary was held on October 25, 1973, at Landers Restaurant. The cost of the meal was $10.00
• The 75 Anniversary was held on May 9, 1998, at the Raddison Hotel in West Lebanon, NH (now Fireside Inn and Suites)
• 100 Anniversary held June 29, 2023, at the Quechee Inn at Marshland Farms

Our club wanted to do a major project as a gift to the City of Lebanon’s park system. We invested $50,000 to create Harmony Park on the Mall in Lebanon. The park was dedicated on May 13, 2023.

Our club chartered the Hanover Rotary Club on April 23, 1925. It also chartered the Lebanon-Riverside (breakfast) Club on April 6, 1990. It merged back with the Lebanon Club on June 30, 2018.

Our Members

Jane Mason, Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) *
Christian McDonald, Lebanon High School
Ronald Michaud, Retired – West Central Behavoral Health *
Daniel Nash, Advanced Geomatics and Design, LLC *
Angela Nelson, AM Peisch
Sharmila Karki Niroula, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Ernst Oidtmann, MD, PHF, Retired – Family Health Center *
V. Bruce Pacht, Retired – Executive Director Non-Profit *
Curtis Payne, Curtis Payne Attorney at Law
Philip Rentz, Service Credit Union *
William Secord, nonZero.solutions *
Marion Steiner, Mascoma Bank *
Rich Wallace, Valley News *
Richard Wallace, Retired – Omer and Bob’s *
George Wenz – Retired – Attorney
Stephen Whitman, S&W Investment Co., LLP *
Caleb Wolfe, Emma’s Garden
John Yacavone, Retired – NorthEast Mailing Systems LLC *
Honorary Member:
Mansfield “Jimmy” Brock, Hamilton, Bermuda, Retired – Colonial Group Insurance