Our History

For years, the Rotary Club of Barbados had watched its own members grow older while the island's young professionals had nowhere comparable to channel their energy for service. Rotaract, Rotary International's program for young adults, was the obvious answer, and in the mid-2010s, with the Rotary Club of Barbados as its sponsor, the Rotaract Club of Barbados was born.

There was no guidebook and no traditions to follow, only a handful of requirements from Rotary International and the steady support of Past Youth Service Director Neal Griffith, who helped the new club find its feet. In its earliest days, "meetings" often meant little more than the Founding President, K. Tremaine Gilkes, one committed member named Ben Richards, and the Board; a start so modest the group nicknamed itself "Ben and the Board." They met wherever they could: a sponsor's boardroom, an outing to Bert's Bar, a borrowed office at Trident Insurance.

From that small beginning, the club grew into what its members now call, with affection, the "Cranberries." In 2017, Shelly-Ann Sealey was installed as the club's first female president, leading under the theme GUTS: Growth, Unity, Transparency, Sustainability and setting a tone of steady, values-led leadership that has carried through every president since.

Over the following decade, the club expanded its membership, deepened its partnerships across the island and the region, and took on projects ranging from literacy and dyslexia support to hospital donations, hurricane and pandemic relief, and international collaborations as far as Uganda. Members went on to serve at the District level, and in 2021–2022 the club produced Barbados' first-ever District Rotaract Representative.

In 2025–2026, under President Christina Ruck, the Rotaract Club of Barbados marked its 10th Charter Anniversary, a milestone celebrated with the same spirit that built the club in the first place: service above self, and service from the heart.