Could your business offer a location for a Red Barrel to STOP HUNGER in our community?

Could your business offer a home to one of our “gumball” machines for a good cause?

Pancake Feed will happen late summer. Club meetings cancelled. Stay safe!

MARCH 16, 2020 UPDATE:

Due to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 precautions, the Marshall County Conservation Board has decided to POSTPONE the 3rd Annual Trees to Table Pancake Feed, possibly till August. We will let you know here when it will happen.

In addition, our club has decided to cancel our meetings for the next four weeks, from March 17 through April 7. After that date we will decide if it is all right to meet, or if more time is needed. We will continue to address club matters and correspondence while maintaining safe social distancing.

It’s the Bobcats Kiwanis Aktion Club’s annual Tip Night at Pizza Ranch!

Yea! The changes were made, just like magic.

It’s often those small things that are the most fraught with anxiety and trepidation and updating and waiting for the calendar sidebar to change over there on the right was one of those.

One might also compare the prospect of doing something new, getting goals or even those (gasp!) New Year’s resolutions started, generates the same feelings of uncertainly and apprehension. Action can come to a halt because them. Regular doses of encouragement, internally and externally, can help in making those good changes.

If you have ever wondered how you as one person can start making a difference in the lives of those in our community, we have an extraordinarily good and wonderful suggestion. You might even say it’s supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! (Holy cow, spelled it right the first time. Take that auto spell check).

Come to one of our Tuesday noon meetings at the American Legion and meet some other like-minded people who work together to touch lives in a positive and impactful way. And our members have even had fun doing it for over 97 years! That’s quite a testimony and a whole lot of history.

Start 2019 with a completely free, no obligation 30-day trial membership on us, the Marshalltown Kiwanis Club.

Please pay no attention to the calendar sidebar

We’re not sure if the calendar changes will show up after awhile, but please note that our Noon Kiwanis Club is NOT meeting on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day. We had a quiet get-together today, Dec. 18, to talk about a variety of topics, some fun and a few serious, and to wish each other, our families and loved ones much joy this holiday season. The same is wished for you, too. See you next year!

 

Kiwanis Pancake Day at Oktemberfest

Kiwanis Peanut Day coming up with Aktion Club

The Noon Kiwanis Club and Bobcat Aktion Club are working together to raise money for their respective service fund accounts this Wednesday, Aug. 30, at Hy-Vee, 802 S. Center St. in Marshalltown. We will start at 2:00 p.m. and the plan is to continue until the last bag of roasted peanuts is gone.

A special Pancake Day event in 1963

Fred Ward, Jr.

Pancake Day is the Noon Kiwanis Club’s major fundraiser for the entire year. Originally begun in the spring of 1955, it settled on the last Saturday in October, the opening of pheasant hunting season. The club’s major emphasis is children and is evidenced in Kiwanis International’s defining statement: “Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.

There have been two additional Pancake Days to help with special projects. One was to raise $5,000 for the new handicapped accessible pool that was built for Pleasant Hill School students.

An earlier pancake event developed when the Marshalltown Kiwanis members voted to send the Marshalltown High School Pep Band to the 1963 Kiwanis International Convention in Atlantic City. According to the club president Fred Ward, Jr., “We chartered a local bus which took our ‘peppy’ group to the Boardwalk, where our young players entertained the bystanders while enjoying themselves immensely.

“When we got back from the convention a small problem awaiting us was paying for the chartered bus, etc. We planned to raise much of the money feeding pancakes and sausages at a horse show at the old fairgrounds.It rained cats and dogs that weekend; we had more horses than pancake customers. We’d geared up to feed thousands and fed only hundreds.

“We stored unused supplies and sold unused sausages the rest of the year. Ed Haupert said he’d book the Shrine Chanters into the Coliseum. They sang for free and we sold tickets like our lives depended on it; when the clapping ceased and the accounting finished, our club was back in the black again!”

Kiwanis Pancake Day is Number 60!

Hard to believe…it was just yesterday…60 years ago…that the Marshalltown Kiwanis Club held its first Kiwanis Pancake Day.

Lots of things have changed since then. For starters, the Marshalltown Kiwanis Club is more often referred to as the “Noon” Kiwanis Club, after it spun off two other Kiwanis clubs in our community.

But the basics remain. Delicious pancakes, sausage, choice of beverage, entertainment all in a family-friendly community event that has become a tradition. All for a good cause as the Noon Kiwanis Club promotes building strong communities from the  youth up.

Locally it started with the first service project in 1922, an effort to create a Marshalltown High School athletic complex to be known as Franklin Field.

Yes, Kiwanis in Marshalltown celebrates 94 years Sept. 29.

When MHS moved to its present location Franklin Field was divided. The football field and track remained with the school district and became the site of junior high/middle school sporting events. The rest of the property that held the tennis courts, baseball diamond, and basketball court became West End/Tankersley Park.

Projects have continued over the years. There was the Wild Cat Canyon Boy Scout Camp. The Pinewood Derby. A skating park. More scoreboards, softball diamonds, guardrails for sledding, electric stop signs near the schools.

Kiwanis Park. Scholarships to Camp Olympia-Kiwanis. Kid ID campaign. Pediatric care kits for Marshall County First Responders.

Donations and partnerships with non-profits and businesses. Onesies saying “FRAGILE: This Side UP” to instruct new parents to place infants on their backs while resting. Gumball machines whose proceeds go to Marshalltown Community College scholarships. The Red Barrel at Fareway is an effort to address food insecurity and child hunger on a daily basis. We are looking for more businesses to donate a small bit of floor space for additional gumball machines and Red Barrels.

Visitors concession stand at Marshalltown High School football games. After Prom participation. Cotton candy and sno-kones and popcorn concessions. Peanut Day sales.

Sponsor club for: Toledo-Tama Kiwanis Club. Marshalltown High School Key Club. Marshalltown Matins Kiwanis Club, South Hardin County Kiwanis Club. Marshalltown P.M. Kiwanis Club. Marshalltown Bobcats Aktion Club.

How has Kiwanis touched your life?

Join us at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 7:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for our 60th Annual Kiwanis Pancake Day! Tickets are $6.00 in advance from members of the Noon Kiwanis Club, P.M. Kiwanis Club, and the VFW. The door price is $7.00. Children age 5 years and younger get in free. Give them as gifts and prizes for family, friends, employees, clients, or vendors. We are thankful for your choice to support Kiwanis in Marshalltown and Marshall County.