Bill Shaw has gone to Herculean efforts to organize us for Kiwanis One Day on Saturday, April 2 at McIver School. There are several projects for us to work on including reupholstering a bench, painting an entrance way and filling planting beds with top soil, so whether you’re talents extend to reupholstering, painting or horticulture, there is a place for you at Kiwanis One Day. In fact, if you’re best at kibitzing, we can use help with that, too; just let Bill know you are coming. We will be doing this together with the other clubs in Division 8 and have active participation from the Gate City Club, Asheboro Club, among others. Come out and see your fellow Kiwanians and do some good for the kids at McIver School. 

 

This past month, I had the honor of representing our club at the English Speaking Union’s Shakespeare Competition at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC-G. I heard recitations of monologues and sonnets by twelve students. I can reassure you that the younger generation has not gone to the dogs, if these twelve are representative of them. Your club foundation contributed $350 for prize money for the participants. Another instance of Kiwanis helping to improve the world, one child and one community at a time. 

 

Our club is in the third year of granting scholarships under the scholarship program. We have been granting two scholarships a year, one each to a student graduating from Smith High School and Dudley High School. The grants are for $1500 per student, per year for the four years of their undergraduate education, assuming they stay in good standing in school. As the scholarship program consumes larger and larger amounts of our foundation contributions, we need to be sure we adequately fund the foundation and that is, of course at the time of our foundation campaign. Thank you for your pledges and contributions so far.

 

On a more solemn note, we are all aware of the number of our members that have passed away this year, and we grieve with the loss of each one. One of our members has made a point of making memorial contributions to our Kiwanis Foundation to honor the memory of deceased members. I understand that families of the members find these contributions very appropriate and meaningful. Hopefully, another occasion will not come up anytime soon, but it is something to keep in mind if it does. 

 

For that matter, we may all want to consider remembering our club foundation in our wills, particularly to help fund the increasingly heavy commitment for scholarship funding. As you can consider estate planning, please add a gift to the foundation, either for the foundation’s general purposes or to fund the scholarship endowment for future years. 

 

Finally, another quarter comes to a close, let’s all give our thanks to Bob Borden for consistently great programs each week. Unfortunately, he has had to miss a number of them with his back surgery, but we look forward to having him back at club meetings on a regular basis. 

 

See you at McIver!