SERVICE CLUBS

I have no ax to grind today. Instead on will dwell a little on community service clubs and perhaps some time in the future go into greater detail about Plainfield’s Lions Club.

Civic Service Clubs were a tradition of community involvement in the first half of the 20^th century. The membership was drawn from individuals from a universal range of occupations. Often the club rules limited membership to only one person from any particular slot. Membership was by unanimous, less one, vote of the club membership.

In Plainfield there were clubs franchised by the three major international organizations, Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions, The Lions, the youngest, was chartered in 1921. After WWII both an Optimist and a Frontier clubs were organized.

Regrettably, these clubs were ethnic and religiously bigoted in their selection of members. The Lions Club accepted Jews from its inception. The other two did not until decades after WWII. On the other hand, the Lions was the last to have Afro-American memberships.

To my knowledge, in Plainfield only the Lions and Rotary are still in existence.

Each club met as frequent as weekly for lunch or dinner. The site of their meetings was the Park Hotel until its demise.

Each club had a different community project agenda. I am familiar with that of the Lions. Besides focusing on services for the blind, an international project, Plainfield Lions Club constructed and for many years until the 70s maintained a campsite for use by local area boy scouts and girl scouts. The camp site on the Watchung/ New Providence border was donated by Harvey Rothberg ,a local lawyer.It became useless when its northern portion was absorbed by route 78.

I was a member of the Plainfield Lions club from 1946 for over four decades. During my presidency in 1960-61 we had over 120 members, all actively involved. At one meeting we were honored by Eleanor Roosevelt coming down to our meeting and briefly addressing us

As civil organizations took over many of the projects volunteers did, the service clubs lost their motivation and dwindled away.