May 13 Continued

Oops, that last post got away from me. Greeters were Judy Barnes, Matt Fong, and Larry Ross. Lee Saathoff gave the invocation. Darla played the piano for Don. Darrell N. needs drivers to transport campers to Camp OK. Two adults are needed for each trip--up on June 4 and back on June 6. (Check with Darrell to make sure of the dates.) Neil G. volunteered to drive one way, but he is looking for a friend to go with him. Is anyone willing to be a friend of Neil's.

Today is Ashley's very last day of school. Invitations to her graduation are on the back table. She will be inducted into our club on May 20, by which time she will be 18. The Kiwanis Internation president will be in Omaha on May 22. Check our website for a link to the District website, which has the information on his visit, in case you are interested in attending. Darla B is happy because her son is graduating. Dave is happy because Ashley attended today's meeting (and after today it won't cost him a dollar each time she comes.) Mary P. announced that KAH is planning a packing event/picnic for our club. I think the date is June 15. More info later.

Next week is our annual meetings. So far the slate of candidates includes Neil Grother and John Boltz for vice-president; Board nominees are Maureen Mohlman, Doug Edwards, Eric Buderus, Heather Bolte, George Howard, Judy Barnes and Susan Spady. There may be others. Keep checking your email.

May 13 Meeting

I almost forgot to share the notes of Thursday's meeting, which would have been too bad because our program was GREAT! Abe Tamayo (hope I spelled it right--too lazy to check the membership list to find out for sure) was our speaker. His topic was Salvation Army. (May is Salvation Army month). Abe gave an interactive program, and he and Karen (didn't catch her last name) handed out pens, back-scratchers and water bottles to members of the audience who related facts about SA. Abe is an absolutely mesmerizing speaker--this was the third time he has been a part of one of our programs. If you have never heard one of his presentations, you have missed A LOT! Mary P. suggested that he put on an old-time revival.

We had two guests--Susan Price, who was making her second visit and Dan (again, no last name) who works at Bob Sass. You very likely might recognize him--he used to work for Renew. He came with Dan Rutt.

Don Siffring's name was drawn for Atta Kiwanian. Greeters were

Food Pantry Helped May 18

Eureka! I'm always happy when a job takes less time than anticipated! Ken Stein is also happy, because he got his trailer back! To top the happiness, Food Pantry is happy to get so much food!
On May 8, Kiwanis members helped load and sort, into Ken's trailer, two and 1/2 tons of food collected by the mail carriers for the Hastings Food Pantry. Late afternoon, today, May 18, some of our Kiwanis members volunteered to assist Hastings Food Pantry people store the food in their building. The Food Pantry workers seemed very grateful to get help! In just 1/2 hour we were ready to go home. However, Ken Stein and Jim Krebsbach had gotten there earlier than the rest of us. I even got home before Joyce threw out my supper. (actually, she wouldn't do that anyway.)
Kiwanians who helped today included Jim K. (he came with his bicycle), Kathy Hohensee, Ken Stein, Mary Peterson, and Mary's son Joe, and myself (I don't think I was very good help, but I was there.) I don't think I have missed anyone this time. When I blogged about the May 8 event, I failed to mention that Erik Buderus helped then.
neil g

Kids Against Hunger Kiwanis Packing Event

Friends, here's your chance....Did you miss including your friends and family during our recent membership drive? On Tuesday, June 15th from 6-8 we will have a Kiwanis KAH packaging event. We will also be providing hot dogs and chips for a light supper. This will be a great event to haul your favorite Kiwanis prospects to.

Children's Day / Book Day

Joan has set me up to contribute to the Kiwanis blog, so here goes!

Thank you to all of the Kiwanis members who helped with the Dia de los Ninos / Dia de los Libros Festival at the City Auditorium on May 2! We had a great time and I think everyone enjoyed the afternoon. We had about 800 people in attendance, and according to the tickets that Margaret took at the food line we served about 550 people. And we didn't run out of food either! We had some leftover rice and beans and also some cakes, and we took it all to Crossroads after the event ended so I know nothing went to waste.

We have already reserved the City Auditorium for the 4th annual Dia Festival - May 1, 2011. Mark your calendars now and plan to attend!

Kathy

May 6 Meeting

Here are notes from the May 6 meeting. Jim Karloff and Dwayne Strasheim were greeters and Jim Lewis gave the invocation. Congratulations went out to Mary Peterson for running in the Lincoln Marathon. We had two guests--Susan Price and Carmen Engelhardt (daughter-in-law of Tom Engelhardt). Both guests were a result of our membership drive. We had more names on out list of potential members, so hopefully some of the others will attend a future meeting. Today was supposed to be the day for potential new member attendance, so I was a little disappointed with the turn-out. Doug recognized the 8 Kiwanians who helped out at El Dia de los Ninos, which was a very fun event. Doug also announced the date for the Annual Meeting, May 20. At that time we will elect four new board members and a vice-president. Help is needed at the USPS food pantry drive this Saturday between 10:30 and 4:30. Darrell is looking for volunteers to transport two young campers to Camp OK in Gretna. We installed two new members today. They were Rose Lindstrom and Leroy Hahn, sponsored by Linda Stark and Tom Genung respectively. As it turns out, Rose and Leroy are soon to be married (to each other), but Rose seemed somewhat confused about the date--either May or September! Speaking of newlyweds, Lee Saathoff reports that he has been married one whole month now, but when asked, he admitted he has not been able to recover his sock drawer from Eileen. Last week's Atta Kiwanian was Father Benton. This week's winner is Kaleena Fong, who was recognized for the work she does in promoting Hastings tourism. Kaleena's name has been drawn a LOT of times previous to today, but you have to be present to win and she wasn't! So it was nice to see that stars aligned for her to win today! Mike Johnson and Mary Plock led us in song. Darrell Nelson was K of the Day. Our speaker was Donna Hastings of the Nebraska Arts Council, who assured us that the arts are alive and thriving in Hastings, Nebraska.

May 8 USPS Food Pantry Drive

This was a good day! The USPS mail carriers picked up over 5000 lbs of food for the Hastings Food Pantry! With the help of Kiwanis members and other volunteers for Food Pantry, the food got loaded into Ken Stein's large trailer, and sorted according to the different types. I thought we had a "blast" helping! (This phrase was originated by Tom Genung from his assessment of the Prairie Loft Kiwanis One project.)
Kiwanians helping today included Ken Stein, Gaynor Watson, Doug Edwards, Dan Rutt, Ken Pitz, Karen Kempf, Tom Genung and myself. I did not help the entire time, so there may have been others helping when I was away. If I am leaving out some information, please send a blog about it.
Food Pantry is asking for more help for Tuesday, May 18, from Kiwanis volunteers to unload the trailer into the Food Pantry storage. We will meet at 5:30 pm. There are still some boxes of food that we did not get sorted today, but I am thinking if we had 6 Kiwanis volunteers to help, we should complete the job within an hour on that Tueday. At our next Thursday noon Kiwanis meeting we will again pass sign-up sheets.
Neil G

El Dia

Fr Benton also helped today. I missed mentioning him on the earlier post.

El Dia de lost Ninos/Day of Caring

Today I helped at El Dia de los Ninos. As Neil Grothen would say, "It was a blast." Other Kiwanians helped as well--Karen Kempf, Don Siffring, Mike Howie, John Boltz, Kathy Schultz and her husband Dale, and Margaret Shaw and her husband Lloyd. Those are the only Kiwanians I saw--I hope I didn't miss anyone. I also hope Kathy blogs on the event.

Thursday I attended the Day of Caring, which Tom Genung told us about at one of our meetings. It was an all-day event for area caregivers. Future Kiwanian LeRoy Hahn was the emcee. It was an excellent event!

I never would have known about, much less attended, these events if it weren't for Kiwanis. What a great networking tool!