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The Kiwanis Club of Waukesha
is celebrating its 90th year of service to Waukesha. From its early days, when its members
included most of the influential citizens that built the landmarks and
industries that still characterize Waukesha, to the present, when the Club
and its Foundation continue to sponsor projects that will shape the
city’s future, the Kiwanis Club of Waukesha has played an important role
in the history of our community.
The Club’s first organizational meeting took place on
April 20, 1922, and at the first regular meeting of members five days
later, William Jennings Bryan – the great orator, author of the famous
“Cross of Gold” speech, presidential candidate, and later participant in
the famous Scopes “monkey” trial – addressed the club, giving us a truly
auspicious start.
The Club began its long association with agriculture,
the 4-H and the Waukesha County Fair in 1925, when it first sponsored a
show to help the county’s young agriculturists prepare their exhibits for
the State Fair. Today, the Club
sponsors the 4-H’s County Fair activities, and still holds its annual
Pancake Breakfast at the Fair each year – a tradition originally begun to
feed young Fair participants who had spent the night there with their
animals. Today, the Pancake
Breakfast is one of the Club’s major fund-raisers, serving well over a
thousand hungry fair-goers each year.
In 1928, a civic group led by members of the Club
spearheaded a fund-raising drive that eventually resulted in the
construction of Waukesha
Memorial Hospital,
which is a major regional medical center today. They raised $293,000 in 85 hours – an
astonishing feat, considering that those were 1928 dollars! The Club remains a partner with the
Hospital today, contributing to projects that particularly benefit young
patients there.
Club members sponsored a campaign to build the city’s
first public swimming pool, at Buchner
Park, and built the tennis
courts at Buchner
Park, as well
(member Charles Schuetze).
The Club first sponsored the creation of another
Kiwanis Club in 1926, when the Wauwatosa
club was chartered. Since then,
the Waukesha Kiwanis Club has sponsored new clubs in Oconomowoc, Brookfield, New Berlin,
Muskego and Pewaukee, as well as two other
clubs in Waukesha, helping to make Kiwanis
a strong presence in southeastern Wisconsin.
Other projects spearheaded by Club members and brought
to fruition with Club ambition include the purchase and construction of
Frame Park, which is now the beautiful showpiece of the City’s park
system (honorary member Andrew Frame); the purchase and construction of
the Long Lake Boy Scout Camp (member L.D. Harkrider);
the 35-acre Kiwanis Day Camp near Wales, Wisconsin; and the purchase of
playground toys and equipment for city parks over the years.
The Club has maintained close relationships with the
Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts and YMCA youth camps
since the 1930s, and remains so today.
Not only does the Club’s Foundation give monetary support to those
organizations, but individual Club members participate in them by sitting
on their boards and chairing their committees. The Club is the chartering organization
for a local Boy Scout Troop and Cub Scout Pack.
The Club began sponsoring Christmas parties for
children in 1933, and today the Club supports the Waukesha Park
and Recreation Department’s annual Halloween party, giving kids a safe
place to go and celebrate on Halloween.
The Club began publishing local church directories for
distribution to local hotels and motels in the 1940s, another tradition
that is carried on to this day as one of the major projects of the Club’s
Spiritual Aims Committee.
The Club began “ringing the bells” for the Salvation
Army’s annual holiday fund-raiser in 1960, and to this day, the Kiwanis
Club of Waukesha
remains the largest participant in this event, generating more revenue
than any other participating group.
The Club lends its enthusiasm and labor to many local
projects, including an annual Christmas shopping for the needy project;
the remodeling and maintenance of YMCA camp buildings, Boy Scout Camp
buildings, and the local Women’s Center facility; and the local Meals on
Wheels program.
The Club sponsors two Key Clubs, at North and South High Schools
in Waukesha.
In 1954, the Club incorporated the Waukesha Kiwanis Foundation,
a 501(c)(3) foundation, to act as its
fund-raising arm. With the sale of
the Kiwanis Day Camp in 1991, the Foundation was endowed with a
significant amount of money, which has been invested and the profits of
which are used to fund the Club’s projects and local charitable
activities. Each year, the Club
conducts a holiday nut and candy sale as its main fund-raiser, which
continues the tradition of the holiday fruitcake sales that began in
1962.
In recent years, the Club has made money donations to
worthwhile projects that have improved the City of Waukesha, including a
$25,000 grant that built the Kiwanis Pavilion, a structure that anchors
the south end of the City’s riverfront improvement project (fittingly,
Frame Park anchors the north end); and a $19,000 grant that allowed the
Waukesha Fire Department to buy its first thermal-imaging camera, a
life-saving device that allows firefighters to locate people in buildings
filled with thick smoke.
For 90 years, the Kiwanis Club of Waukesha
has made the City of Waukesha
a better place to live and work!
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