Kids Against Hunger 31 March

Hi Friends,

Kids Against Hunger will be hosting a group from Minden on Wednesday night. The start time has changed since my original posting on the calendar and since the sign up sheets have circulated. The group (of 40+) is intending on an arrival time of 4:15 and will pack until 6:30. I apologize if I jacked up anyone's plans. It will be a good one to attend if you are interested in seeing all 4 lines operational at one time.

March 25 Meeting

Here is a synopsis of our first Post-Pancake meeting, held March 25. Dave was the president-of-the-day as Doug was unable to be there. Dave did a good job and will serve us well as the new club president next October. Eric and Lee were greeters; Doc gave the invocation. On the menu was Reuben casserole or hot dogs and saurkraut. I passed on eating--maybe next week! However, the cookies from Means-on-Wheels, given in appreciation for our help in delivering meals, were delicious.

One of the benefits of this year's Pancake Day was that we got two new members as a result of it, Rose Lindstrom and Leroy Hahn, both of who came to eat and decided to join. We also had several visitors--Kristy Weeks of Mothers of Pre-Schoolers (or as Don fondly calls them--Mothers Against Pre-Schoolers), Dave Hartman (volunteer at KAH and also a pancake eater), Theresa and Joe Kempf (Dave's wife and son), Kathy Lee (?) of Meals on Wheels and "Ranger Ed" of the Boy Scouts. I hope I haven't left anyone out and that I got the names right.

Donation checks from Kiwanis were given to Kristy Weeks for MOPS and Heather Bolte for Boy Scouts.

KAH still needs more facilitors for packing events. Renee encourages would-be facilitators to attend a session to see what goes on at a typical event. One-Day is April 10 and members are asked to help out at one of our two projects for the day--tree planting at the Arboretum (Ken Franzen gave us an update) or working at Prairie Loft. Linda Stark talked about the new member drive. Jim Krebsbach is just beginning to tally the results of Pancake Day, but he still has a "pile of money" to count, so early results are not yet meaningful.

Maureen Mohlman won the Atta-Kiwanian free meal for our next meeting.

Les Harms presented another Know Your Kiwanian program. This week's "Mystery" Kiwanian was Renee Johnson, whose "past" none of us would have ever guessed!

During Happy Basket, Franc E. talked about the Health Fair March 27 and 28. Kid Vision will be doing vision screening and volunteers are still needed. Dwayne Strasheim told us about an upcoming senior voice recital on April 16. Renee promoted the Open Table's Empty Bowl Soup Supper, April 22. (We also learned that Renee and Kathy Schultz are cousins!)

Don and Mary led us in our weekly songfest.

Finally Ed Wiles of the Boy Scouts presented an exceptionally moving account of his life as a child without the benefits of Boy Scouts. I don't know how else to say it. It was simply very, very moving.

Future Pres gets his feet wet

Hello fellow Kiwanians. As most of you know, I absoulutely love Kiwanis. I have said several times that I would like to win the Lottery so that I could just retire and do Kiwanis full time. Maybe I'll get the chance this June while at Kiwanis International Convention in Las Vegas, maybe we'll win big! Well, I can always dream can't I? Anyway, I was somewhat nervous about my first outing behind the podium today. As it turns out, it wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be. Other than running a little long, I think it went well. I'm sure that after doing it for a while, you become accustomed to the timing and know when and where to cut things short or hurry them along. Joan is definately a life saver behind the scenes. She has the agenda all lined up and keeps the President on track very well. It really is amazing how much "stuff" we are able to cram into one hour, do it well, serve the needs of many in the community, and have an absolute blast while doing it.

If you asked me a few years ago if I ever imangined I would be as involved as I am today, the answer would have been a resounding NO. I still didn't really know what our club was all about and to tell the truth, only joined and showed up at meetings to get Gramps (Doc) off my back about joining this club called Kiwanis. We grew up with Doc constantly telling us we should go to this business or that one because they were Kiwanians. Or, he would point out somebody he knew or was in the news and would make sure that we knew they were a Kiwanian. I remember complaining behind his back, saying what is so great about Kiwanis? Why should I shop there just because they are in Kiwanis. It took a few years of being IN Kiwanis before it even clicked. In fact it was out of guilt for getting angry with another Kiwanis member, that I began to volunteer for every project and join as many committees as I could to make it up to him and Doc, for being such a jerk. If you still find yourself not being real certain what our club is all about, make some time to get really involved in some of our many projects. It will really open your eyes to what being a Kiwanian is all about. Especially the projects that actually interact with the children such as the Christmas shopping, reading at Head Start, or the annual bowling tournament just to name a few. You get to see the gleem in their eyes and get to experience the difference you are making in their lives. I was having a fantastic time! Collegues would ask me why I was spending so much time with Kiwanis when I was obviously tired and worn out. Because I am having fun! It is also very rewarding when you are able to spread this infectious fun to others, especially the youth. It's amazing to see how much fun one of our Key Club members is having and I am honored that she is allowing me to claim a small amount of credit by sponsoring her membership (or graduation) into our Kiwanis Club in May.

Celebrating Doc's 60 years with Kiwanis was a very special thing for me. It was also humbling and tinged with some guilt and regret. Had I listened to this wise man many years ago when he was trying to get us all to join, I could have been having this much fun a long time ago. People always say you should listen to your elders and I wish I had listened to Doc a lot sooner. Doc has such a love for Kiwanis and I am glad to say I get it now. I even find myself pointing out businesses and people and telling my friends and family, "there's a Kiwanian". It's hard not to. My goodness, I'm becoming my Grandfather. I guess there could be worse things. I am looking forward to spending time with Doc at my first International Convention, an opportunity that he is making possible. My sons were involved in Key Club and I hope that they will choose to continue on in Kiwanis one day so that I may be able to do the same for them someday and take them to their first International Convention.

Thank you to Doc and everyone else in the club for making Kiwanis so much fun!!

Pancake Day Thoughts

Another Pancake Day has come and gone. All I did was sit at the admissions table from 7 am to 3 pm, but from that vantage point, things appeared to be running smoothly. Thanks to whoever decided to move the drinks table close to me--it gave me more people to talk to, instead of just the person sitting next to me.

I saw a lot of Kiwanians who worked a few hours and a few Kiwanians who worked a LOT of hours. I asked Margaret if she was going to take Friday off from work, but she said no--she took Wednesday and Thursday off, but planned on working at her job on Friday. Wow.

It would be fun for me to be more in the middle of the cooking action, but then I have a vision of myself falling onto a grill, or into the pancake batter and I realize I am better off on my chair for the duration of the event.

I enjoyed visiting at length with Maureen, who is actually my best friend, Doc, Ed, Clyde and Jeannette DeWalt (sorry if I misspelled your name. One "n" or two ns"? Capital W or lower case w?). There were others who popped in and out of my area, too. I never had spoken to Clyde and Jeannette before, so it was fun getting to know them.

It was hard to recognize Dwayne Strasheim in his baseball cap.

I thought it was wonderful for KHAS TV to cover the event. I imagine Drew had a hand in that. Drew provided the Most Amusing Moment for me that day, when he asked us that morning for MORE tickets to sell.

I hope the sales were successful. I left before the big supper rush--I heard the last pancake was served at 7 pm. I am looking forward to hearing a preliminary report at Thursday's meeting.

I am betting that we didn't get 100% participation from all Kiwanians, and that all members did not sell all their tickets; I hope you did your best, though. It is a fun event, so if you couldn't make it this year, please plan to attend next year.

Sunday March 14 KAH

KAH had a packaging event this afternoon from 2-4 pm. There were four Kiwanians and two spouses working, plus about 35 packagers. In addition, a group of 12 visitors drove in from Oxford to see our operation. They heard about us and might be interested in bringing a group in to pack sometime, but wanted to see what were all about first. Over 14,000 meals were packaged. I believe that we are are only 26,000 meals away from 500,000 (that's one-half million) meals.

March 11 Meeting

Thanks to Linda Stark and Judy Barnes who said today that they have read this blog. This post is for you!

George Howard and Pat Crawford were greeters. Karen Kempf gave the invocation. Darla Bruna played the piano while Don Goodrich led us in some Irish songs. I assume the ethnic twist was because St. Patrick's Day is next Wednesday. (BTW, is it true that Daylight Savings Time takes effect on March 14? My Google Calendar says "yes").

John Boltz won the Atta Kiwanian drawing for all the work he does in cashiering our meetings. He can claim his meal on March 25 since next week's meeting will be replaced with Pancake Day.

We had five guests. Kari Valentine and Amy Niemoth had three occupational therapy students who are visiting the clinic this week while on spring break. Not many college students choose Hastings NE for a spring break location. Fr. Benton had two guests--Lynette Riemersma from The Zone and a guest from the YWCA. (Sorry--I didn't catch her name.) If you are impressed because I know how to spell--and pronounce--Riemersma, it is because I know her mother (same last name) very well. She owns the HR Block office in Red Cloud.

The Zone and the YWCA were represented at out meeting today because Fr. Benton was presenting them with a check, on behalf of Kiwanis, for The Zone after school program.

Kathy Schultz told us about the May 2 Dia de los Ninos y Dia del los Libros (my Spanish spelling is not necessarily correct) festival. Kiwanis is sponsoring a booth and will be looking for workers for 1:30 to 5:30 pm. Check the posting for the Tuesday March 9 Board meeting for more details.

During Happy Basket, Judy Barnes expressed her appreciation for the blog, which helps keep her connected with the club when she is unable to attend. Jim Karloff reported that he and his wife are finally in the new house they built. (Actually they probably had someone else build it for them.) Dave Kempf was once again happy because Key Clubber Ashley Hajny attended today's meeting. Ashley will be 18 soon, the minimum age requirement to be a Kiwanian, and will be inducted at the May 20 meeting.

I found out after the meeting that Les Harms has another Know Your Kiwanian ready to present, but it will have to wait until March 25.

Margaret Shaw updated us on Pancake Day preparations one last time before the big event rolls around next Thursday. She reported that 45 of our 95 members have not signed up to help. Members are expected to help set-up (Wednesday afternoon), work at the event (any shift on Thursday from 7 am to 7 pm) or to clean up Thursday night . Pancake Day is the one project that we expect ALL Kiwanians to work at.

All Kiwanians are also expected to sell 30 tickets. If you don't like to sell, then buy them yourself and give them away. It is goodwill with an inexpensive price tag. Pancake Day is our only large fundraiser. If we don't have a successful Pancake Day, then some of our charitable activities will go unfunded next year.

One last comment on Pancake Day . On Monday and Tuesday, Margaret and Linda Stark will call everyone who has neglected to sign-up. So to avoid hearing from them please go to www.hastingskiwanis.org and sign up today!

Last on the agenda of todays meeting was Will Locke who has many avocations, but who retired as Professor Emeritus, Teacher Education, Hastings College. He gave an entertaining presentation, including Power Point, on the History of Trees in Hastings. And yes, it was very amusing. He had lots of clever anecdotes to share, and also pointed out some very old and very interesting trees in the area. Will showed us a picture of HC with no trees in 1883. Then he showed us a current picture full of trees. Did you know that HC was the first certified arboretum in Hastings (1997) followed by Central Community College and then the Highland Park Project (2009 or 2010 I think)?

On April 24, HC will re-enact the first tree planting in conjunction with the anniversary of the college's founding. The public is invited to attend. The re-enactment will be at the corner of University and California (Doug Nienhueser said this is Frank Northrop's house) at 9 am. You can wear period attire. Please keep your eyes open for a fur cape that was lost at the original tree-planting (1883) and never found.

The meeting was over by 1 pm. We sure can pack a lot into one hour!

(This is the second time I had to write this posting. Even though it is autosaved every minute, I managed to lose it entirely. I believe I accidently deleted it and then save the delete.)

Youth In Harmony

I mentioned the other day that I wanted to go to the Youth in Harmony concert Monday night at the French Chapel. Well, I went and it was wonderful. The chapel holds 500 and there weren't too many empty seats. Several of our Kiwanians are members of the Chorus of the Plains (that's how I first got interested in their music) and Chorus of the Plains helped sponsor the Youth in Harmony clinc. (Don Goodrich sold me tickets to the Chorus of the Plains' annual concert a few years ago and I have been hooked ever since.) Don G., Darrell N., LiVila, and Don J. were all in attendance. The full chorus (almost 100 high school boys) sang first, then a few smaller groups, and then Back in Business--a barbershop quartet of men way younger than me. So barbershop is not only for geezers! BIB is from Lawrence Kansas and I guess they had worked with the boys at the clinic that day, because the kids really seemed to like them.

So, you can see that Kiwanis leads you in directions you never dreamed of. Four years ago I would have laughed at the idea of going out of my way to listen to barbershop and now look at me! Not only have I attended multiple bbshop events, but I have really enjoyed them.

Your Board at Work

The Board met today, with excellent attendance. All Board members attended, except for one who was excused. Five committee chairs also attended. We do the things that boards of organizations usually do--approve the minutes and the treasurer's report, pass around correspondence received, present bills for reimbursement, discuss new and old business, and hear committee reports. As you may have expected, we have some very active committees. Today Jim explained the workings of the Wish and Spin to us. We are ordering new mugs to hand out, mainly to our program presenters. We have agreed to have an activity booth at the Dia de los Ninos (Childrens festival) in May. We will have signup sheets available soon and are looking for help from a little before 2 pm until a little after 5 pm.) Our activity will be children creating book marks using our logo and the KAH logo. The bookmark can be used in a book that the children will receive at another booth. KAH is 60% above their goal for meals packaged. Aktion Club members really enjoyed hearing KHAS-TV weather personality Jon (or is it John) Walsh speak at one of their two recent meetings. Club advisors met and planned out the rest of the Aktion Club calendar for the year. Margaret and her committee have things well in hand for Pancake Day on March 18. We will participate in the Brain Team Symposium in mid-April, but not Creative Kids' Day at the mall--we understand that it is cancelled. Two of our members will attend the Kiwanis International Convention this June.

Stellar results KAH

Many thanks to Susan Spady. Susan jumped on board at the packing event on Sunday. We like seeing new faces at the KAH events. The more people we can have as facilitators, the more events we can host. Also, thanks to Rob Lloyd, Lee Saathoff, Chuck Hastings for being repeated facilitators.

Over the weekend, a total of 5 groups (St Paul's Lutheran Blue Hill, Clay Center United Church of Christ, Hastings Church of Christ, Wanda Drovers 4-H, and Zion Lutheran Wanda) packaged food for a noted result of about 25,000 meals packaged. Chuck and pals packed up 2 more pallets of outgoing food that Chuck took to CLS this morning. Another load of ingredients is scheduled to arrive shortly. We surpassed our 100,000 meal mark towards our Haiti goal and shy of the $23000 mark by just $3650. Way to go Friends! Shortly we will surpass the 500,000 meal mark! We are at 470,000 now.

Thanks to all Kiwanians for their continued support of this project.

Monday March 8

Thanks to Dave and Karen for their comments on my recent posting. Dave, you are probably right. This will catch on in time. I think I am going to contact the guy from Spencer Iowa Kiwanis who urged us to set up and blog and see what makes his work. Karen, I appreciated your comments on the Facebook aspect. I am a little clumsy in using Facebook, but I actually did a little chatting the other night to a friend and to my son. I notice you are also often available to chat. I am not really sure what being a fan entails, so I guess I will become a fan of something and see how it goes. See you both tomorrow, I imagine. I am going to the Youth in Harmony concert tonight at the French Chapel.

Here is a recap of Thursday's meeting. I get the feeling no one is reading the blog, but what the heck--I could be wrong. Ed Kuehn and Dwayne Strasheim were greeters and Don Siffring gave the invocation. KAH reports 10 packing sessions already scheduled for March and it is only the fourth of the month. The 100,000 meal goal has been surpassed by 31,922 meals and the $16,347.86 of the $25,000 goal has been collected. Skip-a-Meal was last week. If you haven't already done so, please give Jim Krebsbach the $6 you would have normally spent on last week's meal. Pancake Day is March 18. Be sure to sign up for a shift. Margaret still needs coffee urns and a serving cart. Kiwanis One Day is April 10. The Board will meet Tuesday March 9 at noon at the OK. Anyone is welcome to attend. Chuck Hastings received the Atta Kiwanian drawing and will enjoy a free lunch next week. Darla Bruna reported during Happy Basket that she is moving her real estate office and Karen Kempf plugged this blog and our page on Facebook. Karen, I think you mentioned something specific on Facebook, but my notes are a little garbled on that point, so feel free to make a clarification.

As always, the highlight of the meeting was the program. This week it was a Very Large Quartet from Hastings Chorus of the Plains, including Patrick Crawford, Darrell Nelson and Don Goodrich. (I hope I am not forgetting anyone.) They sang a few songs and then led our membership in a few more. I love to sing, so I thought it was a lot of fun. Before the singing, Lonnie Miner gave a presentation on a Youth in Harmony clinic that will be held in conjunction with Hastings College on Monday March 8. The culmination of the clinic will be a free concert at 7 pm that evening at the French Memorial Chapel on the HC campus. The public is invited to attend. I hope to go--I have already forewarned my husband, Joe, so he should be there too. (He is planning on going to Kansas City Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday--that's four days of freedom for him--so he is pretty open to making me happy right now.)