Sharing Smiles with Local Residents

One group that often comes to mind when the Kiwanis Club of Transfer thinks of “service” is residents at local assisted living facilities. Over the years, our club as well at the K-Family groups at Reynolds schools have worked with these facilities. Whether it’s doing crafts, playing bingo, or simply visiting with residents, we like to participate in activities with these folks as often as possible.

These residents have been on our mind even more since social distancing, as we know many of them are facing loneliness. It is understandable that these facilities cannot accept visitors at this time, but this leaves many residents feeling isolated. Our club wanted to do something to spread some cheer to a group of local residents.

We had to come up with a way to put smiles on residents’ faces from a distance, keeping them safe. We decided to send some bright cheery flowers to each resident at Greystone Country Estates. We put each flower in its own pot and attached a note to let the residents know we were thinking of them.

This also seemed like the perfect time to thank the staff of Greystone for all their hard work, and we put together flowers to send to them as well.

The flowers were dropped off at Greystone to be distributed by the staff. Said the staff, “We thank you so much for the smiles you put on residents’ faces.” Mission accomplished!

Kiwanis Club of Transfer Shows Appreciation for Local Essential Workers

Our club recently was looking for opportunities to continue serving our community through the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining social distancing. Our minds immediately went to our local essential employees that are going to work everyday and keeping our community moving. “Delivering a small token of our gratitude allowed us Kiwanians to make essential workers feel appreciated,” said James Rust Jr. We decided to distribute goody bags to these workers to show our appreciation for their hard work and to provide a bit of cheer during their surely tiring days.

While we would have loved to get together and put together these goody bags in person, we had to take a more cautious approach to this project. The items were purchased, and then Jeff and Brenda Long tackled packing all 197 bags. “It felt very satisfying to be involved in such a positive and encouraging club project.”

Once packed, the bags were divided up into larger bags for easier distribution. Numbers had been collected so we knew how many good bags each business needed. On Friday, April 17 the bags were distributed by Sharon Rust, James Rust Jr., and LeRoy Cotton to local essential businesses, fire departments, and township buildings. Sharon said, “Seeing the appreciation in everyone’s face was a ray of sunshine during this dark time.” Each delivery was met with a smiling face.

Our club continues to think about how we can continue community service during this time. Have you or your Kiwanis Club participated in social distancing service recently? Do you have ideas for service projects? We want to hear them! Comment below!

2019 Dictionary Project

Third graders pose proudly with their new dictionaries.

Each year the Kiwanis Club of Transfer purchases dictionaries to distribute to third graders in the Reynolds School District. This service project is part of a larger, nationwide effort called The Dictionary Project, which aims to “assist all students in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary.”

“Reading makes a country great,” said Dan Resinger, club secretary. ” This program allows each of our students to have a dictionary with them all day long.” The students are able to use these dictionaries in class, for their homework, and when they discover new words while reading.

Transfer Kiwanians have been participating in the project for nine years and have distributed 840 dictionaries. 2019 was the first year that they also distributed thesaurusi to fifth graders, and they passed out 96. Many fifth graders commented that they still had and used the dictionaries that they had received two years prior.

This project has proven to be a success year after year. “The platform for all knowledge is online, the internet,” said Dan, “But the bedrock of knowledge is in books and in print.” One teacher noted that not only did her students appreciate the dictionaries but they found the extra information in the back very interesting. Each dictionary comes with a large reference section in the back with information on things like the states and the presidents.