YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – In 1991, Elayne Bozick was searching for a church. She found Rotary instead.
“I’m still not committed to a church, but I’ve been in Rotary for 34 years,” the Coitsville woman says. “When you look at the core values of integrity, diversity, friendship, it’s all that community you want to find in a church.”
Bozick joined Youngstown Rotary four years after the club began accepting women into its ranks. She had just started her graphic design business and friends urged her to join as a way to meet more people and foster trust.
Ruth Horner, then the Youngstown postmaster, was the first female Youngstown Rotarian, joining in December 1987, according to Bill Lawson, director of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.
Bozick went on to serve as club president and in July became Rotary District 6650 governor.
“The primary job of a district governor is to represent Rotary International in our districts, and that’s why we spend so much time physically visiting our clubs in person,” Bozick says.
They also support club presidents and presidents-elect. The position allows her to meet, share ideas with and learn from those in the same position in other Rotary districts.
District 6650 comprises 45 clubs in 10 counties including Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana. And during one week in October, Bozick, who is a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Stouffer Realty, visited five clubs. She’s also on the board of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society and serves on the Coitsville Board of Zoning Appeals. She credits organized strategic planning – and her husband, Lawrence – for her ability to accomplish everything on her plate.
“He has done so much to help me be able just to focus on this, like he’ll have dinner ready for me tonight,” Bozick explains.
Rotary Focus Areas
While thinking of her business prompted her to join the club, her passion for its causes keeps her involved. Rotary’s seven areas of focus are peace building and conflict prevention; disease prevention and treatment; water, sanitation and hygiene; maternal and child health; basic education and literacy; community economic development and environment.
The focus on protecting the environment played a role in Bozick becoming district governor. A friend whom Bozick had sponsored to become a member of the Youngstown Rotary and who served as its president, asked Bozick if she would be interested in the position.
Bozick is actively involved in Operation Pollination, a collaborative Rotary project that “recognizes the importance of pollinator habitat both restored and maintained on public and private lands,” according to its website.
“So I was actively visiting clubs and talking about that and recruiting partners in the community when she asked me that question, and my response to her was, ‘Well, that would advance the cause.’ And that’s the way I looked at it.”
Bozick is an avid gardener and enjoys spending time outside. But she started to notice changes including seeing fewer robins and monarch butterflies.
“I got my Rotary magazine, and I read in that issue that Rotary International trustees have decided to add a seventh area of focus, and it’s protecting our environment,” Bozick says. “I had this immediate sense of relief and gratitude that they see the same problems I’m seeing. So I wanted to learn more.”
She began researching biodiversity and talked to a friend who works to preserve the butterflies. She learned that monarchs are dwindling because they’re losing their habitat that is milkweed, a plant many don’t see as a desirable addition to their gardens. Bozick also became acquainted with Christopher Stein who started the Operation Pollination movement and she got involved.
Her meeting with one Rotarian in Columbus fostered another collaboration. The man, Tom Carlisi, governor of district 6690, south of Bozick’s district, was seated at the peace table. They were talking and Carlisi told Bozick he believes peace underpins all of the other Rotary focus areas. Bozick agreed but added that protecting the environment does as well.
“And he said, ‘We should work together,’” Bozick relays. “We shook on it, and we’ve been working together ever since.”
Carlisi spoke to incoming Rotary presidents last March and they “invited all of the club presidents to consider becoming a peace builder club, because our goal is to become a 100% peace builder district, one club at a time,” she says. So far, nine have signed on.
And for the first time, Bozick’s district selected a peace chairperson in Monsignor Robert Siffrin of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.
“God bless him – every pun intended,” Bozick recalls. “He said, ‘I look at this as an opportunity.’ And he’s been actively visiting clubs and talking about peace builders.”
What Others Say
Other Youngstown Rotarians have served in the district governor role before Bozick and she says they’ve been supportive of her in the position too.
Debbie Esbenshade is the first woman from the Youngstown Rotary to serve as district governor. That was 2013-14. Scott Schulick also previously served in the district governor post.
“It’s a pretty important role,” Esbenshade says. “You oversee our district.”
The district governor also relays the goals and the vision of the international president to district clubs. District governors are required to visit each club once. Esbenshade says she made a point to return for important events too. Some clubs she visited four times during her year in office.
She believes it’s important that the clubs know they’re supported and that they’re a vital part of Rotary.
Esbenshade says Bozick is off to a good start.
“She’s gotten a lot done already,” she notes. “She’s got a lot of ideas and thoughts for things that need to be done.”
Rotary emphasizes a three-legged stool metaphor to explain a healthy club and the significance of its three committees: membership, foundation and public image.
Regarding public image, Bozick and the district public image chairperson are revamping the district website.
“We’re just getting a whole new look so I’m excited about that,” she adds.
Like a lot of longstanding clubs and organizations, membership in Rotary across North America has been declining.
“So our district membership chair is going around and visiting clubs and talking with them about alternative club models,” Bozick explains. “And that this is the first year that we’ve really made a focus on that.”
Alternative club models could appeal to those with a heart for service who can’t or don’t want to join a traditional club. They could meet virtually or at a time that doesn’t coincide with breakfast, lunch or dinner as traditional Rotary club meetings do.
“Teachers can’t join a traditional Rotary Club, but are passionate about education,” Bozick notes as an example. “Basic education and literacy is one of our focus areas.”
They could form their own club within the district and meet when it fits their schedules and do something aligned with literacy or something related to service to the community with Rotary.
Such a club would be sponsored by a traditional club and considered its companion club, she explains. The traditional club could count the companion club’s members as its own although the companion club would maintain its own bylaws and officers.
Bozick points out that Rotary is one of the world’s largest, most respected and well-known humanitarian organizations.
She believes in it and is a fervent supporter of its areas of focus.
“They’re pretty all encompassing but it also, I believe, is important because it unites people with those passions,” Bozick notes. “It’s not so much what Rotary is as who Rotary is…people who share a passion for service, leadership, integrity, diversity and friendship. People who are like minded and want to do good in the world.”
Pictured at top: Elayne Bozick, Rotary District 6650 governor, stands inside the Tyler History Museum in Youngstown. A Rotarian since 1991, she began her latest role in July.