About 55 people attended a ceremony held last week to mark the establishment of a new Kiwanis Club for northwest Jefferson County, said Carla O’Brien, immediate past governor for Kiwanis Missouri-Arkansas, who helped found the new chapter.
O’Brien is one of the new club’s 20 members, and most of them attended the charter ceremony for the Kiwanis Club of Northwest Jefferson County, held Jan. 12 at the High Ridge Fire Protection District House.
She also is the new chapter’s treasurer. Other officers are Charlene Robinson, president; Bobbie Liverar, president-elect; and Craig Luetkemeyer, secretary.
O’Brien, a High Ridge resident, said she has been involved with the Kiwanis organization for 20 years and has been a member of the Kiwanis Club of Gravois-St. Louis County for 15 years and wanted to establish a chapter near her home.
“We wanted to establish a chapter here because there was no one from Kiwanis serving this area,” she said. “There was nothing along Hwy. 30.”
O’Brien said the mission for Kiwanis Club members is to help the youth in their areas. She said the effort to establish the new chapter in northwest Jefferson County began in October, adding that 15 members were needed before the club could be formed.
Members of Kiwanis clubs from around the St. Louis area also attended the new chapter’s charter meeting and provided a generous donation, O’Brien said.
“They gave us money to help us start supporting the kids,” she said. “We got $950, which is really high for this type of thing.”
O’Brien said that money, as well as funds from future fundraising activities, will go to help young people.
“Kiwanis serves youth in all sorts of ways. The assistance is different (in different places), depending on the needs,” she said. “We’ll work with the school systems. We have service leadership programs for elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and a service leadership program in universities and colleges.
“The service leadership programs are intended to help kids develop service orientation at a young age. They are student-led programs where we are there just to assist the students.”
O’Brien said working with elementary students can be particularly gratifying.
“My favorite is our grade school program, TERRIFIC. It stands for Thoughtful-Enthusiastic-Respectful-Responsible-Inclusive-Friendly-Capable,” O’Brien said. “They have to think about all of these traits and try to emulate them.”
She said the Northwest Jefferson chapter will decide at its February meeting how to allocate the startup money.
“We’ll decide how we’ll spend it on the kids,” she said.
O’Brien said the Northwest chapter is the third Kiwanis Club in Jefferson County, joining the Arnold and Festus-Crystal City chapters.
She said Jefferson County Councilman Brian Haskins (District 1, High Ridge) also attended the chapter’s charter ceremony.
“He brought a proclamation from the County Council that proclaimed Jan. 12 Northwest Jefferson County Kiwanis Day,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said the new Kiwanis chapter asked charter ceremony attendees to bring canned goods or cash donations to benefit the Peace Pantry.
“We had four large boxes of canned goods and received $80 in donations,” O’Brien said. “It was successful.”
The Northwest Jefferson chapter will hold meetings at 4:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month at the Peace Pantry, 8100 S. Industrial Drive, in Cedar Hill.
For more information or to join the chapter, visit the Kiwanis Club of Northwest Jefferson County, Missouri Facebook page.