Club Richelieu

CLUB RICHELIEU

The Richelieu Club is an international service club of French expression,similar to the Rotary or the Kiwanis. Le Club Richelieu was founded in Ottawa in 1944 for the purpose of maintaining the values of the French-Canadian culture being threathened by an anglophone majority. It quickly spread throughout French speaking Canada and from there to other countries. It made its appearance in the United States in 1955. Originally an organization for men only, women were officially welcomed as members of the Richelieu Club in 1982 in Maniwaki, Quebec. Since then a great number of clubs, if not most, have followed suit although, rather than have a "mixed" club, many districts of the Richelieu International in the United States created separate clubs for women.

Le Club Richelieu in Lowell saw the light of day in February 1962 and remained quite active for about 20 years. In the early 1980s Le Club Richelieu de Lowell became comatose and suddenly disappeared from the scene. It was revived in March 1983 and remained exclusively a "men's club" until the mid 90s.

An offshoot of the Club Richelieu is the Foundation, created in 1977. The primary goal of the Fondation Richelieu is to fund research for cancer in children.

Le Club Richelieu de Lowell is open to men and women who speak French. They meet regularly on a monthly basis at a local restaurant from September to May. The meetings include dinner, music and a guest speaker. For more information on this organization, please go to http://richelieu.org/club.cfm?v=lowell

and e-mail one of the three names mentioned in the
"Ecrivez-nous" section.