Charlottesville Conducts "In-Meeting K-Family Service Night"

by Jim Hart

The Kiwanis Club of Charlottesville held its second ever K-Family In-Meeting Service Night, Monday, February 21, at the Elks Lodge. Nine CKI members, including Capital District CKI Governor Brian Cofrancesco, fresh from a very successful Capital District Convention, and four Key Clubbers from Albemarle High School joined twenty-five Kiwanians and two guests (potential new members) in this unique intergenerational service meeting. Don Foss, the club's immediate past president and Service Leadership Program Committee chair, prefaced the service project by showing off his excellent power point presentation detailing how the Charlottesville club's SLP program works. Then, Claire Henry, the president of CKI at the University of Virginia, explained how the 40 K-Family members in attendance -- ranging in age from teenagers to octogenarians-- would "find their inner child" by cutting up old tee-shirts and skillfully braiding the cloth strips into dog toys and cat toys that would be donated to the Charlottesville Area SPCA. Club President Jim Hart quoted Matt Gonzales in the current Kiwanis magazine saying that tonight's meeting demonstrated how the Kiwanis Family passes along "an inheritance of kindness, compassion, leadership and community involvement." Scores of tee shirts were donated and cut up to provide hours of fun for future K-Family service meetings and produced dozens of toys for the dogs and cats to enjoy in Charlottesville's SPCA shelter.

Pictured above, from left, CKI members Claire Henry and Anthony Lau and Kiwanis Membership Committee chair Bob Pflugfelder.

Pictured above, from left, Kelly Widdows from CKI at UVA, past Club Secretary Dick Lear, and PLG Don Jones.