Rotary International has been voted the No. 1 charity in the world this year. That's from District 5550 Rotary Foundation chair Bob Durston, who spoke today at the local club's luncheon in Portage la Prairie.

"Rotary started its charity foundation 100 years ago in Atlanta, Georgia, after our international conference there," says Durston. "And it's grown now to over a billion dollars in our endowment funds. We encourage Rotarians to look at the foundation as charity of choice for doing good in the world. That's really what we want to do."

Durston informed the Portage club members they can now get money back from international endowment funds. He says funds are matched for local projects such as scholarships, making it easier for said projects to move forward.

The Rotary Club's been in the top ten of all international charities in the world on a regular basis.

"This speaks a lot of the Rotarians who volunteer their time to do a lot of this work," Durston adds. "Without the volunteer-time your administrative expenses go up. We put back out into the community worldwide about 92% of what we raise. We talk about Rotarians, but non-Rotarians who believe in what we're doing can also donate to our foundation and receive a charitable tax receipt. The only thing is they have to go through the Rotary club. If there are people in Portage that believe what Rotary is doing and want to donate to the Foundation, you only need to talk to the Foundation chair here to funnel your money through to the foundation."