The Rotary Club of Fitzgerald was chartered on December 21, 1936, through the sponsorship of the Columbus Rotary Club after an organizational meeting on December 1, 1936, in the office of J. C. McDonald, with twenty-six charter members. S. B. Bowers, Sr., Harvey L. Jay, J. H. Mayes, J. C. McDonald, Neil Peavy, J. B. Russell, and J. Gould Williams were elected directors, and the charter officers were J. C. McDonald as president, J. H. Mayes as vice-president, Harvey L. Jay as secretary, Neil Peavy as treasurer, and Lauren Parrott as sergeant-at-arms. The club chose the Lee-Grant Hotel for meetings every Tuesday at 12:30 o’clock P.M., and held its first meeting there on December 8, 1936. Its Charter Night Banquet took place on January 26, 1937, at 8:00 o’clock P.M. in the American Legion Home, with all but one member present and about 75 guests attending; K. D. White, president of the Columbus Club, presided, J. Quentin Davidson presented a bell and gavel on behalf of the Columbus Club, and District Governor Joel Chandler Harris, Jr., presented the charter through the efforts and leadership of Rotarians Owen Segraves and Dr. Ray Barfield. The Fitzgerald club later sponsored the charters of clubs in Douglas in 1961, Ocilla in 1963, and Ashburn in 1968. The club became home to business, economic, professional, and community leaders who sought to make Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County an ideal community in which to live, work, worship, and play. Literacy became a mainstay of the club, and superintendents, principals, and Board of Education members consistently served as leaders in both the club and the community. During his term as club president in 1978, Owen Segraves helped establish the Rotary Top Ten program, which each year recognizes the ten highest academically achieving students in grades nine through twelve with a banquet and plaque. In 1998, the Ben Hill Education Foundation began partnering with the Rotarians to give a computer to students who achieved top ten status during all four years of high school. Internationally, the club sponsored numerous students through the Georgia Rotary Student program and group study exchange, provided clean water, medical equipment and supplies, and mobile health buses through global grant projects, and provided funding to help eradicate the polio virus. Many Fitzgerald Rotarians also served beyond the club level in district leadership, and in 2013–2014 Gary D. Smith became the first member of the club to serve as a District Governor.