Brunswick Coastal Rotary closes after 35 years of service
Brunswick Coastal Rotary has closed after 35 years, ending grantmaking for Brunswick nonprofits and projects as far away as Burundi and South Africa.
At a farewell celebration at the Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick Coastal Rotary closed after 35 years. The Brunswick club had funded local nonprofits and supported health projects in Africa, including the Brunswick Area Teen Center, Oasis Free Clinic, MidCoast Hunger Prevention Project and Tedford Housing.
District 7780 chartered the club on July 30, 1990, and the club’s own page lists Oct. 12, 1990 as the charter date. The regional Rotary network stretches across coastal Maine, western Maine, coastal New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts and includes 39 to 40 clubs in District 7780.
The club backed an AIDS hospice unit at a hospital in South Africa, water projects in Uganda and Burundi, and a Rotary Foundation grant for an ambulance in Kigutu, Burundi. That grant was valued at $52,100 and also paid for training local medical staff and community members in maternal and infant health. Brunswick Coastal worked on the ambulance project with Bath Sunrise, Boothbay, Fryeburg Area, Kittery, Rochester, Oxford Hills, Saco Bay and Yarmouth Rotary clubs, along with the Bujumbura Rotary Club in Burundi.
The Kigutu Hospital and Women’s Health Pavilion opened on June 22, 2023, and the official handover of the ambulance took place on March 20, 2026. In 2022, the club raised money for an ambulance to carry pregnant women who needed C-sections and other surgeries.
Members voted in April 2026 to surrender the charter. A 2024 grant helped Oasis Free Clinic’s dental program after the clinic moved to 331 Maine St. in Brunswick. Several members plan to keep Rotary service going through another nearby club, and Trisha Hunter served as district governor in 2003-04.
Susan Black of Harpswell helped support the Burundi water work. Black died on Sept. 5, 2022. District 7780 later selected her for Rotary International’s 2022-23 Service Above Self Award, the organization’s highest honor.
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