PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — When Mandy Pooler-Hall joined the Presque Isle Rotary Club 10 years ago at age 21, she was one of the few people of her generation in the organization. Today, although the Rotary Club has only two members under the age of 30, members are actively looking for and creating ways to attract Aroostook County’s most hardworking and talented young professionals.
“I joined at the suggestion of my employer. I was a college graduate who had just joined the workforce and I really didn’t know many other professionals,” said Pooler-Hall, who is an architectural designer for B.R. Smith and Associates and now the third youngest member of Rotary. She most recently served as the 2017-2018 club president. “I had been president of my high school Key Club and I missed interactions with community members.”
Like many long-time organizations, the Presque Isle Rotary Club had been steeped in decades-old traditions that might have worked in the past but that did not work when reaching out to younger potential members, according to Pooler-Hall. As a result, the 95 club members, whose average age is 42, have focused less on meetings and strived to increase the number of community service projects that they host or take part in, which in turn directly impact the community in a positive way.
“Young people like to get things done and not spend as much time sitting in meetings. So we’ve designated one of our meetings per month as a day where we visit a business or organization in our community and learn more about what they provide,” she said.
Most recently, the Rotary Club was one of four agencies, including the Presque Isle Kiwanis Club, United Way of Aroostook and the City of Presque Isle, who raised nearly $300,000 for the completion of the city’s new playground, and helped supply meals for BikeMaine cyclists and volunteers. They also have volunteered for United Way’s Summer Gap Feeding Program and hosted annual fundraisers such as the Purple Pinkie Project, the Thesaurus Project for the local school district, Downing Park clean-up and the Rotary Auction, for which the proceeds go toward many organizations and causes.
In addition, the club has become more flexible when it comes to members’ schedules, particularly for those with young families and other professional and personal commitments. Rather than requiring that all members attend the weekly Monday meeting at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, they’ve established a satellite club for those whose regular schedules conflict with that time. The satellite club meets every Thursday at Governor’s Restaurant at 7 a.m. and is meant to ensure that all members young and old can share new ideas.
Jason Parent, incoming president of the Presque Isle Rotary Club and executive director and CEO for the Aroostook County Action Program, noted that with the ongoing issue of youth out-migration, it has become more important than ever for civic organizations to value the insights and talents of younger members.
“It used to be, for example, that during the Rotary Auction the same people would be in charge of the same tasks every year. Now, we’ve given people more opportunities to be committee chairs and take part in causes that they’re personally passionate about,” Parent said. “I think those efforts have helped the club exist in a more organic way.”
The Presque Isle Kiwanis Club is another organization that has continually found ways to increase the number of members under 30 or 40 years of age. To promote greater community involvement, they have allowed satellite clubs to form in the smaller communities around Presque Isle in which members take part in projects that positively impact their own communities. That method also frees satellite members from having to attend the weekly Tuesday meetings at UMPI.
“Some of those clubs might eventually turn into a ‘3-2-1 Club’ where members only do three hours of service per month, two hours of social interaction with each other per month and one one-hour of meeting per month,” said George Watson, incoming president for the Presque Isle club.
“There’s a 3-2-1 Club in Easton and we could see those types of clubs growing because they fit with young business people who are developing their careers and raising families,” he continued.
Watson, who has been a member of Presque Isle Kiwanis since 2006, said that in addition to their annual fundraisers, such as the Christmas basket and Kid’s Fun Day, younger members have been instrumental in introducing new events such as their Halloween Monster Mash and Kiwanis Paint, Plant and Sip. They’ve also taken advantage of collaborations with the Presque Isle Rotary Club through the playground project and in serving breakfast for BikeMaine folks.
“You can’t bring in a young member and give them so much direction that they never say their opinion. You have to listen to them,” Watson said. “Some of the best new ideas we’ve had have come from those members.”
Despite the decreasing number of youth in Aroostook County, Tim McMahon, a Kiwanis member and past president of Kiwanis New England, stated that being part of the club can provide young professionals with many of the same career-building experiences that they often receive during school and in their workplace.
“I became better with public speaking and learned a lot about budgeting and how to move a project forward,” said McMahon, who has been a Kiwanis member since 1985.
Presque Isle Kiwanis has managed to keep the average age of its members in the mid-30s, Watson noted, because the organization is more willing than ever to let members choose which project they’re most enthusiastic about volunteering on. Though Kiwanis has around 200 community initiatives or projects that they contribute to each year, they only require that members volunteer for 20 of those projects.
“I don’t see us ever not existing as a club. Those who want to survive have to adapt to changes with the times,” Watson said. “You have to be flexible so that young people continue to want to be part of their communities.”
