What is Kiwanis?

Serving the Children of the World from the Greater Pike's Peak Region

An excruciatingly short historical summary

Kiwanis International was founded January 21, 1915, in Detroit, Michigan, by Allen Simpson Browne, a Moose lodge organizer, and Joseph G. Prance, a tailor.  It was originally conceived to be strictly a business networking organization, but soon the club members began to realize personal feelings of satisfaction from doing something to improve their communities.  Once this new path was taken, Kiwanis never looked back.  Kiwanis has developed into what I believe is the world's premier organization devoted to the principle of service; to the advancement of individual, community, and national welfare; and to the strengthening of international goodwill.  Our motto, "Serving the Children of the World" says a great deal about who we are and what we stand for.  Kiwanis membership now spans the globe, with more than 300,000 members in more than 8,000 clubs in 79 countries, giving on average $70 million and 6.5 million volunteer hours for community service each year.  (Click HERE to discover where the name 'Kiwanis' came from.)

Objects of Kiwanis

Members of Kiwanis Clubs around the world continue to uphold the six permanent Objects of Kiwanis International, which were approved by Kiwanis club delegates at the 1924 International Convention in Denver, Colorado. Through the succeeding decades, they have remained unchanged.

• To give primacy to the human and spiritual rather than to the material values of life.
• To encourage the daily living of the Golden Rule in all human relationships.
• To promote the adoption and the application of higher social, business, and professional standards.
• To develop, by precept and example, a more intelligent, aggressive, and serviceable citizenship.
• To provide, through Kiwanis clubs, a practical means to form enduring friendships, to render altruistic service, and to build better communities.
• To cooperate in creating and maintaining that sound public opinion and high idealism which make possible the increase of righteousness, justice, patriotism, and goodwill.

Service

Kiwanis Clubs participate in several types of service projects, each selected by its own local board of directors.  These projects usually fall under the following four categories:

• Community Service - Activities include a wide range of projects, from therapeutic riding, to highway beautification, to playground or shelter construction and maintenance.  The following are several award-winning club service projects undertaken in 1999.
  • Bureau of Children with Special Needs
  • Child Haven Project
  • Refurbishing Homes
  • Victoria's Home Women's Shelter Project
  • Young Children's Safety Walk
  • Kiwanis Health and Safety Fair
  • False River Safety Project
• Human & Spiritual Values - Activities as diverse as birthday parties at nursing homes and support of counseling centers for bereaved parents fall under this category. The service projects traditionally developed have encouraged church or temple attendance, as well as other spiritual activity in the community. These projects are non-denominational in nature. For example, while a church would promote attendance at its own worship services, a Kiwanis club would encourage people to attend a religious service of their choice.
• Youth Services - Activities such Terrific Kids, Key Leader, Bringing Up Grades (B.U.G.), Kids Voting, and Scouting fall under this category.
• Young Children: Priority One - Helping to rid the world of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, providing child safety seats to low income parents, smoke detectors for families with young children, First Visitor, lead poisoning prevention projects, and the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute all fall under this category.

Sponsored Youth Programs

Kiwanis Clubs also work very closely with their Sponsored Youth Programs to improve each student's skills in Leadership and Community/School Service:

• Circle K - For college and university students, Circle K International is devoted to involving college and university students in campus and community service while developing quality leaders and citizens. Circle K inspires people to better our world through its international membership of more than 11,500 collegians on more than 500 college campuses in nine nations.
• Key Club -For high school students, Key Club International is the world’s largest high school service organization with more than 205,000 members in 20 nations. Students commit to serving their home, school, and community through various activities that promote the Objects of Key Club, which are:
  • To develop initiative and leadership;
  • To provide experience in living and working together;
  • To serve the school and community;
  • To cooperate with the school principal;
  • To prepare for useful citizenship;
  • To accept and promote the following ideals.
• Builders Club -For junior high and middle school students, Builders Club's goal is to develop leadership qualities in young people through experiences in volunteer community service. As the motto "We Build" indicates, Builders Club is for young people who want to take positive, constructive action to build a better world for themselves and others. Builders Club members experience the thrill of accomplishment and the satisfaction of knowing their efforts make a difference for those they help.
• K-Kids - For elementary students, K-Kids, the newest of the Kiwanis sponsored programs, provides young people between the ages of six and ten the opportunity to develop at an early age self-esteem, leadership skills, morals, and standards, and respect for others.

Meetings

Kiwanis Clubs meet regularly, and usually weekly, in order to gather, discuss and distribute information about what's needed in the community in terms of service, and to keep up to date on the region's activities.  Current events and updates are most often presented to the clubs in the form of programs, with speakers from all types of organizations covering all types of topics.  A great deal of the committee planning, whose efforts are directed to performing the actual service projects, goes on in meetings behind the scenes.

Hands-on Service

Kiwanis prides itself in being a hands-on service organization, since many of the service projects are done by the individual members, rather than simply raising the funds to do a project and then paying someone to perform the work.  Even though fund-raising is a necessary part of our operations, our members particularly enjoy the personal involvement, and the satisfaction that a job was well done and someone's future was secured by our own efforts.

We Welcome You!

Thank you for visiting us here on the Internet.  I hope that you will decide that what we as Kiwanians have done, and what we will most certainly continue to do in a greatly expanded fashion, is worthwhile, and that you might care to work with us side by side.  If so, please feel free to follow the link below and send us a membership information request.  The welcome mat is always out.

If you are interested in learning more about our organization, click Membership Info Request below.

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