From the ground up, Global ROOTS club builds its own experience
As a teenager in southern Italy in 2005, Maria Vittoria “Mavi” Gargiulo was “kind of forced” to join an Interact club that her father’s Rotary club was trying to reestablish. The students wore suits (or at least coats and ties), and the atmosphere was very formal. “Everybody was pretending to be adult while I just wanted to be 15,” she recalls.
She quit as soon as her father was off his club’s board, but she reconnected with Rotary while attending the University of Salerno when she found a “more chill and relaxed” Rotaract club.
There, her Rotaract career took off. In 2022, she decided to also join a Rotary club at the urging of her closest friend, whose father was serving as president. It was what she calls a “legacy club,” focused on lunch meetings and weekly speakers. The dues of 1,400 euros amounted to her entire salary as a post-doctoral student. “They were a good club, and a lot of district governors come from it,” Gargiulo says. “Some people really look forward to that kind of social gathering every Thursday, which is fair — that’s the experience they want. That’s just not the experience I like.”
Members of the Rotary Club of Global ROOTS – District 2101 (from left) Lorenza Parente, Maria Vittoria Gargiulo, Raffaelle Dell’Anno, and Raffaella Russo on the waterfront in Salerno, Italy.
Image credit: Camillo Pasquarelli
So she created the club she wanted to belong to instead. The result was the Rotary Club of Global ROOTS – District 2101, which chartered in April and has become a space for Rotaract members and others who had expressed interest in Rotary but hadn’t found a club where they fit in.
Including “global” in the name reflects the club’s desire to have an international membership and reach. ROOTS stands for resilience, outreach, opportunity, tradition, and sustainability, all values that founding members agreed were important during workshops to draft the club’s constitution.
Gargiulo explains a second meaning of the name: “Roots also ground trees. And that is precisely what we want — to be deeply rooted in the founding values of Rotary, while also capable of projecting them into a changing world.”
Already, the club has achieved an impressive diversity. Its membership crosses generations and professions, with 66 percent women and 76 percent younger than 40. More than half of the club is new to Rotary, while a quarter also belong to a Rotaract club. Many of the initial members are from the Campania region of Italy, but some live in Rome, Milan, or as far away as the Netherlands. Even though most members speak Italian, the club language is English.
Alfonso Toraldo, the club’s executive secretary and a lawyer in training to be a notary, is a dual member of the Rotaract Club of Afragola-Frattamaggiore “Porte di Napolio.” He says he has always been interested in international projects, having volunteered multiple times in Zanzibar, the African island, through an organization for children. He was attracted to the Global ROOTS club by the prospect of more service opportunities.
Accessible approach
One of the priorities of the Rotary Club of Global ROOTS is a flexible hybrid format that is convenient for everyone. The board is investing in a videoconferencing setup to ensure an equally engaging experience whether you attend in person or remotely.
“The way we meet — in person when possible, but always with an inclusive hybrid approach — is a big part of the club’s identity,” says Gargiulo. “It really matters to us that both in-person and online members feel equally comfortable and valued, and we’re trying to be very intentional about that from the ground up.”
Here are some tips for facilitating hybrid meetings from the University of Toronto:
- Create and share a clear agenda and all meeting materials in advance.
- Create and share meeting etiquette and expectations, such as whether all participants, both in person and remote, will be expected to raise hands or virtual hands and if the online chat function will be used.
- Have a person attending remotely co-facilitate the meeting.
- Ask participants to identify themselves by name when they are contributing so everyone is aware of who is talking.
“She told us, We will take all the good parts of Rotary, and we will make big projects, and we will optimize our time,” Toraldo says, describing Gargiulo’s pitch. “This was her presentation, and I couldn’t say no. It was amazing for me, as a volunteer, knowing that there is a reality that is going to form into a pattern of service.”
Irene Petraroli joined the charter effort after meeting Gargiulo at a conference on disaster risk reduction, a field in which they both work. She was sold on the promise of deep inclusion and open communication. “The convincing part was when she discussed the idea that the group would be dedicated to engagement and community service project ideas,” says Petraroli, a native of Italy who is in the Netherlands on a fellowship at the University of Twente. “That was the real selling point for me.”
To attract young adults and respect their time and money, the club keeps costs low. Members under 30 years old pay about 300 euros a year, which includes the club’s fees to Rotary International and the district, plus 150 euros for The Rotary Foundation. Those over 30 pay some additional costs (but never more than an additional 175 euros) for club administration, a website, and videoconferencing, plus seed money for projects chosen mutually.
The club decided to collect a donation for the Foundation from every member to impart an appreciation of Rotary’s larger reach. The board frequently shares with members international club projects from Rotary’s website or in Rotary magazine. Every new member is paired with a mentor who has more experience in Rotary.
Luigi Riello, an attorney general emeritus of the city of Naples and longtime Rotarian who joined the club as its oldest member at age 71, enjoys this group for its fresh approach and potential. “For me, taking part in the founding of the Global ROOTS club has represented not merely an opportunity, but a true responsibility,” he says. “Together with women and men of diverse ages, backgrounds, and sensibilities, we have given life to a club unbound by geographical affiliation yet profoundly rooted in the principles of Rotary International.
“Ours is a Rotary that seeks to return to its very essence: to tangibly promote peace, to combat global hunger, and to oppose every form of injustice. We are not drawn to social formalities, elegant dinners, or repetitive rituals. What inspires us is a determination to act — with practical tools, well-defined projects, and measurable objectives — in pursuit of social justice and human dignity.”
This story originally appeared in the November 2025 issue of Rotary magazine.