Macomb School Superintendent Alene Reuschel (on right), expressed her appreciation for our support and coordination of the School Snack Program. It's a Snack Bag program at MacArthur, Lincoln and Edison schools that served 61 families this year. She said $5.62 is spent per child per week to provide a snack bag they take home on the weekends. Alene said there is a positive fund balance which can be carried over to possibly expand the program.
Children are selected by families approaching the school and through teachers and social workers identifying children who may not have a meal when out of school. "These children don't go hungry over the weekend" she said. Bags are handed out on Friday and include a variety of snacks for each child.
Kiwanis has been involved in the program for about four years and touches the lives of several children each year.
Another project she wanted to let us know about is the Macomb Youth Leadership Group. In conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce, 16 sophomores go out once a month to different places in the community to see a variety of work sites. In the second year, each student will be partnered with a different business or organization in the community. It's designed to develop leadership skills and hopefully get the students to stay or come back to Macomb to work. In the third year, they work with a business partner to develop a project.
Fourteen students applied for job shadowing this year and there's a waiting list of other students who want to apply.
Kiwanis has been promoting leadership skills in schools for many years by sponsoring a student from the high school to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Seminars.
Another way Alene is encouraging leadership training in schools is to find ways to give back to the community with different service projects. She's looking forward to finding out what kinds of projects have been undertaken this year.
She also asked if there was a way the schools could help us in building and adding on to the Kiwanis Chandler Park playground. Owen Thompson said we could use all the help we can get especially with fund raising and then with "muscle" when it comes time to do the actual construction.
| Owen also gave us an update on the Salvation Army food pantry located in their headquarters building at 505 N. Randolph in Macomb.
He said single men and single women numbers are up but family numbers are down in Salvation Army social services from last year to this year.
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The Salvation Army has just started giving out free bread from Hy Vee and continues with supplemental types of assistance like deer meat and emergency transportation services.
Owen says "the pantry needs canned fruit, tuna, cereal, prepared food (ravioli, macraroni), tuna helper and peanut butter." It's at its lowest level in the seven years he's been here. "The need is great" he says. The Salvation Army is funded strictly by local support with donations from the community.
Next week, our guest speaker will be Jim Starnes, the President and CEO of Bridgeway.
On May 26 we will have a representative of MOSAIC as guest speaker.
President-elect Debbie Vandemark presided over the meeting held this week at the Ponderosa on East Jackson. We will also meet at Ponderosa on Tuesday, May 19.
Ken Harp announced the Membership Committee is kicking off a new membership drive that will run for six weeks. Ken explained the drive will consist of a competition among two teams. A Blue Team headed by Ken and a Yellow Team led by Tim Moss. Club members have been assigned to one of the two teams and will receive points for achieving certain goals. The team with the most points at the end of the contest will be treated to dinner by the losing team. Here's how you get points for yourself and your team: bring in a new member and receive 12 points; invite a guest and get 8 points; bring back an inactive member and you'll receive 2 points. Ken pointed out some information in a new Kiwanis membership brochure that will be helpful in explaining Kiwanis to newcomers. That includes the time commitment involved, which is about six hours a month divided between regular meetings and club activities. Kiwanis is for you if you believe children are the future, take pride in your community, want to reach out to those in need and enjoy meeting new people. Kiwanis members improve communities one child at a time, build enduring friendships, better the lives of children, participate in fun and fellowship, sharpen leadership skills, develop business contacts, gain insight into local and international issues and attain a greater appreciation of their own talents and successes. Ken says it will be an intensive drive and asks that you be thinking about possible new members that could be invited to join us. President Tim Moss writes in to add "Past I-I District Governor Amron Buchanan has tentatively agreed to attend our Club Meeting on Tuesday, July 7th. Amron will give us a Kiwanis pep talk and, hopefully, induct new members to the Club, assuming our membership drive proves fruitful."
Jay Carter reminded us that the Flags of Love will be on display the first time this year on Memorial Day, Monday, 25. Flags go up at 6 AM and come down at 6 PM. Kiwanis is the primary group for Memorial Day but everyone is invited to help out at Chandler Park. There's lots of flags to put up and take down that day in memory of armed forces personnel that have served from Macomb and McDonough County.
Have you ever gotten stuck when trying to answer the question "what is Kiwanis?" Here's a quick 30 second response direct from Kiwanis International.
"Kiwanis International is an international organization of member-volunteers who give more than 6 million hours and more than $100 million each year to help change the world one child and one community at a time. Any community need can become a Kiwanis service project, especially if the need involves children, who should have the help and the right to lead healthy, successful lives. We believe that helping a child helps the world."
