On March 17, 1917, a small group of business and professional leaders in Birmingham, Alabama started a small civic club,but their dreams were anything but small. They believed their actions could help build a better world.

They had been meeting as a civic club which was slanted just a little too much toward personal gain to suit these men. They gave up the charter they had purchased and set out to make a club suitable to them. They settled on the name Civitan, a phrase coined from the Latin "civitas," loosely translating as citizenship.

The club continued on a purely local basis during the frantic World War I years which began only a month and 11 days after the club formed. The group succeeded in every effort to benefit soldiers. It was a job of untiring loyalty and patriotism.

Returning soldiers were heartily welcomed back into the club, and service projects began to focus on children. Dr. Courtney W. Shropshire, was elected to be the third president of the still-local Civitan Club. In his two terms as president, Shropshire, a surgeon seldom seen without a red carnation in his lapel, shared his dream with a few close friends in the Birmingham Club, and the proposal was given unanimous approval by a small but enthusiastic group present at the Shropshire home that day.

By June of 1921, when the first international convention was held in Birmingham, there were 30 clubs and more than 300 delegates at the convention. At the second convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee, delegates from 115 clubs attended. There were more than 3,300 Civitans throughout the United States.

From the very beginning, Civitan encouraged its clubs to seek out needs within their community and to fulfill those needs. Clubs across the United States built hospitals, parks, playgrounds. They served as big brothers to troubled children. They registered voters. Their dreams were big, their sights high, their accomplishments great.

From the time Civitan chartered its first clubs, aid to those less fortunate was a notable project. Concern for retarded children was a natural expansion of the early effort to assist crippled children. By the decade of the 1950s, Civitan work in this area had made giant strides and a momentous decision was made to adopt the mentally retarded as a major emphasis project.

It all started in Birmingham, Alabama, but it is spreading around the world, with over 40,000 members in 24 countries. Civitan was the dream, the gift of our founders to the world. It is a rich heritage, a proud heritage for us to pass on, just as Shropshire and those early leaders passed it on to us.

(Condensed and adapted from "Civitan History"--Civitan International website)