This section will be used to highlight club events that the District Office feels is worthy of publishing for everyone; ideas that your club might just want to adopt!
These ideas are grouped into the following categories: Projects, Fundraisers and Meeting Ideas.
The District Office takes this information from articles submitted for the Carolina Kiwanian, independent emails from clubs, information on the bottom of the club's monthly report form, and club newsletters submitted to the District Office.
Asheville, Division 1
80 Members
Backpacks for Back To School
In August, the Asheville club filled 450 backpacks for a back-to-school program.
Canton-Pigeon River Valley, Division 1
30 Members
Childrens Christmas Project
Thank you and summary of this project, supported by many clubs in the district, is here.
Hendersonville, Division 2
146 Members
What do you do with 50 Years of Shoes!Click here to go to this article.
Sanford, Division 10
83 Members
No Scare Fair for Halloween
As a Young Children project, the club helped to sponsor a No-Scare Fair the day before Halloween and contributed $500.00 to defray the cost of the event. This event serves hundreds of children in Lee County in a fun, non-threatening occasion.
Fayetteville, Division 11
213 Members
Terrific Kids Program
A special twist to the Terrific Kids Program, the Fayetteville gives over 60 bicycles and helmets away to their terrific kids.
Division-wide sponsorship, Division 17
New Aktion Club
This club has chartered the seventh Aktion club in the district. Read an inspirational speech by the new club President, Kelley Kaplan. Click here.
Hampstead, Division 18
43 Members
Kiwanis Park
On August 16, 2004 the Hampstead Kiwanis Park, Inc (a foundation) and Pender County, NC signed agreement for joint development, managment and maintenance of the Hampstead Kiwanis Park as a 80 acre public recreation park. On August 22, 2004 at 1:30Pm the official groundbreaking ceremony was held at the park. A great turnout was present from the entire community including state Senator R C Soles, State Representive Carolyn Justice, County Commissioners David Williams, Dwight Strickland and F D Rivenbark showed their support. Kiwanis Family Picnic at 3PM on the same day at member Jeff Morris's home with 49 attending.
Knightdale, Division 19
14 Members
School Tools Program
The Knightdale Club continued it's "Back to School Tools Program" in July and August in which members ask parents to contribute school supplies to the needy students in the area. The club was very successful with this program last year, and contributed to many schools in the local area to the extent that "No Child Was Left Without." 25 service hours were reported for the School for Tools drive held over 2 weekends. They collected school supplies for the area schools at their Wal-mart entrance.
Elkin, Division 5
20 Members
Dinner & Auction Fundraiser
The Elkin club held a dinner and auction that raised $4,500.
Hilton Head Island, Division 21
37 Members
Chili Cookoff
The Hilton Head Island club held their annual chili cook-off in October and raised $10,000.
Columbia Northeast, Division 23
31 Members
Golf Tournament
The Columbia Northeast club had a golf tournament netting $10,000.
Hendersonville, Division 2
146 Members
School Leaders Invited to Meeting
In August, the Hendersonville club invited the Superintendent and Principals of local schools to their club meeting before school started.
Spruce Pine, Division 3
40 Members
Club Social on 5th Tuesday
The Spruce Pine Club meets Tuesday evenings. If there is a 5th Tuesday of the month, this time is reserved for Club Socials to keep the FUN in Kiwanis.
Greater Greenville, Division 17
52 Members
Christmas In July Program Theme
Summer months are slow for this club so, in July they had "Christmas in July". Each meeting was themed - ex. one week everyone brought items for a nursing home, the next meeting they brought canned goods. In August, they went as a group to deliver the goods collected to local charities. There was great participation in this project!!!!
Southport/Oak Island, Division 26
56 Members
New Member Open House
The Southport Club held a "New Member Open House". It was a two hour event that replaced their regular meeting. All members were encouraged to attend and to invite at least ONE guest who might be a prospective member. They had light hor d'oeuvres and soft drinks. Committee chairs had displays with storyboards and handouts about what they do. Also members of the club's sponsored programs were there to answer questions on what they do and how the Southport club supports them. They also had an open discussion with guests. Are some of your clubs having problems getting new members? Why not try an open house?
What do you do with 50 Years of Shoes!
Shoes for success
Jennie Jones Giles
Times-News Staff Writer
jennie.giles@hendersonvillenews.com
In 1952, a school principal approached Kiwanis Club President L.B. Prince with a special request. One of the students in the school needed a pair of shoes. Members bought the shoes.
Soon other principals were contacting club members. They also had students who needed shoes.
"I was a new member then," said Morris Kaplan, who will turn 94 in July. "They told me to set up a program."
Kaplan established the shoe program in 1955.
For almost 50 years, schoolchildren, whose parents could not afford to buy new shoes, received a pair. In 1994, socks were added.
Since 1955, 3,084 pairs of shoes were given to schoolchildren in Henderson County. In a little more than 10 years, 949 pairs of socks were given.
"A letter is sent to all the school principals explaining the program and telling them how to get the shoes," said John Grear, current committee chairman. "Teachers, assistant teachers, counselors are then on the lookout for kids with shoes falling apart or inappropriate shoes."
The child's parent is contacted for permission to buy the shoes. Then the child and parent walk into Sherman's Sporting Goods on Main Street with a letter or voucher.
"They pick out their shoes just like anybody else," Grear said.
The Kiwanis Club reimburses the store.
"Sherman's has been supplying the shoes for 35 years," Kaplan said.
"The program keeps growing," Grear said. "Sometimes, if a child can't get to the store, the teacher will trace out the shoe size on a piece of paper."
The tracing is then matched to the correct size shoe by Becky Banadyga, Kiwanis member and store co-owner.
"We've received letters of appreciation from some of the children," Kaplan said. "It's heartwarming to get a letter written in crayon from a 7 or 8 year old. It's especially heartwarming to get letters from high school students who never had a new pair of shoes."
The kids were coming to school and wearing hand-me-down shoes and clothes in most cases, he said.
One of the root causes of young people dropping out of school is self-esteem, Kaplan said. The program helps keep young people in school, he said.
One young girl who received new shoes lived in a shack with a dirt floor, he said.
"She went on to get her doctorate," Kaplan said.
"The children are mostly from one-parent homes," Kaplan said. "In most cases, it's a mother left with kids. In one case, a man and wife abandoned four kids and left them with their grandmother.
"Once, a child came into the store with shoes stinking and rotting on his feet," Kaplan said. "His feet were full of sores. Becky washed his feet and he put on a new, clean pair of socks and shoes.
"One kid asked his principal if he could leave his new shoes at school each day and wear his old ones home," Kaplan said. "He thought his Daddy might sell the new shoes for alcohol.
"One boy was caught, for the first time ever, running down the hall," he said. "He told the principal it was the first time he could remember running without tripping."
The Kiwanis Club members pay for the program through fund-raising activities, such as the Apple Breakfast at Labor Day, swing band concerts, golf tournaments and the Travelogue program.
"We run separate fund accounts," Grear said. "For the last two years proceeds from the Mountain Marathon with the YMCA were earmarked for the shoe program."
Grear, who has served as chairman of the program for four years, said a total of $62,071.71 has been spent since 1955 for shoes and socks for children in Henderson County.
"I remember back at the beginning of the program, when I would spend $200 I would start to get worried," Kaplan said.
Kaplan will have been a member of the local Kiwanis Club for 50 years in January. He has received the Hixson Award for community service above the call of duty and is a past president of the club. He was also Lay Person of the Year in 1967 for ecumenical work in the community.
"My religion teaches that we are supposed to leave a certain percentage of the crop for the poor in harvest time," Kaplan said. "It teaches we're not suppose to keep a man in poverty."
Grear said he personally knew young people in his high school who dropped out of school because of their economic situation and self-esteem.
"These kids were dealing with the discomfort and embarrassment of 'looking shabby,'" he said.
Grear volunteered to serve on the committee soon after joining the local Kiwanis Club.
Donations for the shoe program can be given to any Kiwanis Club member, Grear said.
Broader participation in the program by the county's schools is also sought, Grear and Kaplan said.
"We give a call to the principals of schools where no shoes were given out and just let them know we're here," he said.
Kaplan said he wrote a poem which states why, for more than 50 years, he has devoted so much of his time to the Shoes and Socks program.
"For the want of a pair of shoes, a student's bright future was lost.
"A student drop out he became. Kiwanis to the rescue came.
"A feeling of self-worth was the gain. Walking with pride, his future looked bright again.
"Who knows to what path of success this pair of shoes will lead.
"Kiwanis will also stand to gain, all for the want of a pair of shoes."
Back to PROJECTS
Canton-Pigeon River Valley's Childrens Christmas Project Summary
The District gave Division One and the Canton-Pigeon Rive Valley Club great support for the children's clothing project. Contributions from district clubs, Kiwanians, and local fundraising allowed us to support more than double the original goal of 20-30 children in Bethel, Canton and Clyde, North Carolina, schools—areas in the path of, and affected by, the Pigeon River floods. The heartwarming extent of donations quickly expanded the project's scope, and members of the division's leadership team stepped up to help Canton Kiwanians coordinate with schools, serve children, distribute funds, and assist in shopping, wrapping and transportation.
Serving Children in Need: On December 20th, the Canton Club's Christmas Party provided gifts to some forty-five children from Canton and Bethel, including those that school representatives had identified as in need, and their siblings. The children received gifts from Santa (Canton Past President Jim Wilson) that consisted of full sets of clothes, from underwear to coats, hats and gloves, or toys or board games, or all. The Canton Club also provided dinners for the children and their families. Canton's President, Charlie Crawford reported that they supported eight more children, identified after the party took place. (Photos will be posted separately to the District website.)
Division One's Sponsored Youth Chair, Tammy Lathrop, coordinated with Clyde Elementary School to identify twenty seven children for support. I presented a check to the school's principal, so that fifteen of the school's faculty and staff members could take their children shopping for clothing. The number of children helped at Clyde may be higher, as snow closed schools for two days prior to the holiday break, and shopping was not yet complete. Members of the Waynesville club assisted Canton by shopping for a portion of the children served at the party, wrapping gifts, and helping with delivery and transportation. The Tuscola High School Key Club (Waynesville) also helped to organize and wrap gifts.
In all, this project served about eighty children at four elementary schools and two middle schools in Canton, Clyde and Bethel.
During the flooding, the Canton Fire Department lost or had damaged its entire stock of child safety seats. As an extension of this project, the division funded No-Back and Turbo Boosters for the SafeKids Coalition to help replace those seats and for use in the 2005 Haywood County Kiwanis SafeKids project in mid-February.
District Support: Thirty-three district Kiwanis clubs, including all clubs in Division One, one Key Club, matching funds from two divisions, and individual contributions from fifteen Kiwanians gave a total of $6,750. This included a grant to Canton from the District Foundation of $1,000-a check that we had in hand within three days. Many more clubs had indicated their intent to contribute by the time we realized our goal and asked that they keep the funds for local use. Additionally, Division Two and the Black Mountain Kiwanis Thrift Shop contributed replacement meeting items lost when the Canton Club's meeting location was flooded.
Public Relations: The Enterprise Mountaineer (Haywood County) published a release on the Canton Christmas Party, and the division provided releases to two area radio stations and the Asheville Citizen-Times.
As said in thank you letters sent to contributors this week, on behalf of all of all of us in Division One and the Canton Club, we are most grateful for the heartwarming and gracious support from leadership and Kiwanians in the Carolinas District. You helped us all "Make It Happen!"
Howard Kline
Lt. Governor 2004-2005
Division One
AKTION CLUB SPEECH BY KELLEY KAPLAN
Good evening,………as Lt. Governor Todd Siebels said, I am Kelley Kaplan, and I am president of the Aktion Club of Eastern Carolina. We have 31 charter members, and hope to get more as the word spreads about our club, which is the primary goal of my presidency.
Aktion Club is a community-service group for adult citizens who live with a physical or intellectual challenge. The mission of Aktion Club is to provide these adults an opportunity to develop initiative, and leadership, to serve their community, to be integrated into society, and to demonstrate the dignity and value of these citizens. Aktion Club members strive to return to their community the benefits, help and caring they have received, as well as develop important skills in the process.
Even before being chartered, we had already started giving back to the community. At our first meeting we gathered canned goods for the First Born food bank, which we will continue to support, not only with food, but also by working at the food bank, boxing food for needy families. We have plans for a fundraiser plant sale in conjunction with the Greater Greenville Yard sale, and to make up food bags to deliver to a nursing home. Most importantly, all our members made an original piece of art in the shape of a heart, following the theme of our club, which is hearts to hearts. They were auctioned at Charter night, February 3, at St. James Methodist Church's fellowship hall. Even though the weather was awful, we had almost 200 guests. If you weren't able to attend, you missed a magical evening for everyone there, both members and guests. We had a senator, a state representative, the mayor, a representative from the Governor's office, and one from Special Olympics North Carolina, and naturally, fellow Kiwanians and sponsors. We thought if we were lucky, we might raise $25.00 for each of the 24 hearts. Boy were we surprised! Those hearts were auctioned for almost $200.00 a piece, and raised more than four thousand, five hundred dollars. You should have seen the smiles on the faces of our members. And it was all because of the generosity of the Kiwanians and other community members.
What is done with this money? Whenever a Kiwanis club raises money though a fundraiser, that money most be donated back to the community. Over the next year, our club will have several service projects and use these funds to support non-profit organizations in our area. We have not ironed out all of the details but do know that, according to Kiwanis by-laws, this money must be given to charities. The members of our club will really benefit from knowing that they were able to better someone's life through their contribution in our club.
My life has been filled with volunteers, from the time I started a special school in Houston, then at special camps, and throughout all the wonderful years I have spent in Special Olympics. It was volunteers and teammates who urged me to get back on my feet after I had given up hope following brain surgery, because they needed me.
As I got older and more independent, I started trying to give back to the community I was living in, but doors just wouldn't open because I was labeled retarded. Finally, in Dallas, my Grandfather, who was a Shriner, pulled a lot of strings, and I was accepted as a volunteer at the Shrine Crippled Children's Hospital, where I spent two years. One of those years, I was voted Volunteer of the Year.
But when we moved to Greenville, once again the doors were shut, except for Special Olympics, where I became not only an Athlete of the Year, but also a Global Messenger, telling anyone who will listen about the wonders of being involved in all the areas of Special Olympics. And then the greatest thing happened. The Kiwanis Greenville Golden K Jewels, my Mother's club, accepted me as a member!
I got to help with all their projects, from raising money for local charities, to visiting The Victory Junction Gang to present them with a check for Talladega, the Kiwanis bunkhouse, to selling T-shirts for the Children's Miracle Network, and visiting a nursing home. I loved all the projects, and the friends I made in Kiwanis, but a lot of the programs were hard for me to understand.
And then a real miracle happened. Lt. Governor Todd Siebels decided it was time for Greenville to have an Aktion Club. Let me tell you, when he makes up his mind to do something, things start happening at super-sonic speed! When he told me at our first meeting in December that we would be chartered by the February meeting, I thought he was nuts, and told him so. But he was right.
This last weekend, I attended the mid-winter convention in Myrtle Beach, where I gave a speech at a meeting of all the Lt. Governors of North and South Carolina. Hopefully, they will ask me to speak in their districts, so that one day, there will be an Aktion Club in communities all across the Carolinas.
And hopefully, little by little, people will realize that although we might do things differently, we CAN GET THINGS DONE. AND THEN, EVENTUALLY THEY WILL LABEL US ABLE, NOT DISABLED!!
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers from your club and community who are helping make all this possible. Without you, the door might have remained closed. Instead, the door is wide open to opportunities and a future I can only imagine.
Thank you all so very much.
Back to PROJECTS