About Kiwanis
Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time. Every club is committed to doing service that is close to its heart and crucial to its community. To ensure that our mission of service is carried forward, we have created award-winning programs for people of all ages and abilities. We also join in global projects to effect change in communities around the world.
Doing good feels good! Kiwanis finds new ways to get to know people in your community. Connect with others—and get involved in projects that change lives. Kiwanis is all about making friends—and making an impact—in your local community so you’ve come to the right place. Kiwanis International brings the world together — one community at a time. Today, we stand with more than 600,000 members in more than 80 countries from Kiwanis to Key Club to Circle K and beyond. Kiwanis empowers communities to improve the world by making lasting differences in the lives of children.
Service is at the heart of every Kiwanis club, no matter where in the world it’s located. Members stage nearly 150,000 service projects and raise nearly $100 million every year for communities, families and projects. By working together, members achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. The money raised by your registration and sponsorship goes to the local Kiwanis projects listed below.
CCKC and VKBB Service Projects
Service Leadership Programs
Service Leadership Programs are designed to inspire students, as well as adults who live with disabilities, to become engaged members of their communities who work to solve problems and help others through service, eventually maturing to inspire and lead others into service.
Doing good feels good! Kiwanis finds new ways to get to know people in your community. Connect with others—and get involved in projects that change lives. Kiwanis is all about making friends—and making an impact—in your local community so you’ve come to the right place. Kiwanis International brings the world together — one community at a time. Today, we stand with more than 600,000 members in more than 80 countries from Kiwanis to Key Club to Circle K and beyond. Kiwanis empowers communities to improve the world by making lasting differences in the lives of children.
Service is at the heart of every Kiwanis club, no matter where in the world it’s located. Members stage nearly 150,000 service projects and raise nearly $100 million every year for communities, families and projects. By working together, members achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. The money raised by your registration and sponsorship goes to the local Kiwanis projects listed below.
CCKC and VKBB Service Projects
- Apples for Teachers - Recognizing teachers and staff at Ruediger Elementary for their service with apples once a year.
- Community Center Reading Nook – books are provided, rotated and replenished in a section of the Smith-Williams Community Center along with shelving and a comfortable seating area to encourage reading. All books are available for any child, teenager, or adult to keep as their own.
- Diaper Drive: Diapers are donated to Healthy Start and Healthy Families Florida for kids ages infant to 5 years.
- Earl A. Cushing Community Service Scholarship - a $500 award given a Godby High School student who is pursuing full-time studies leading to a degree from a post-secondary institution. Recipients will be selected on the basis of community service activities, community involvement, leadership ability, extracurricular activities, and financial need.
- Eliminate Project (MNT) – In conjunction with an international UNICEF project, funds are raised in support of the MNT project. The goal of the project is to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus from the face of the earth.
- Feed-the-Hungry - Once a quarter, members provide meal service to the homeless at Grace Mission.
- Guardian ad Litem - Members volunteer their time in this partnership of community advocates and professional staff providing a powerful voice on behalf of Florida’s abused and neglected children. Volunteers are child advocates but also support other GAL programs such as Luggage for Foster Children, and the First Beginnings Project which supports those aging out of the foster care system.
- Handicap Ramp Building - At the request of, and in collaboration with Ability First, the club constructs ramps for disabled or senior clients with limited access to their house.
- Heritage Trails Community School Partnership – supporting needs for report card celebrations, end of year celebrations, yearly beach outing, etc. .
- Holiday Meal Bags – each year baskets with supplies for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners and gift cards for turkeys or hams are supplied to families in need.
- Honor Flight Tallahassee - Supporting the mission to transport local veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit those memorials dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices.
- Kids Voting - During general elections, booths are manned at a selected voting precinct to help educate kids on the election process.
- Lighthouse for the Blind - supporting the youth programs for Big Bend area children who are blind with donations and equipment.
- Meals-on-Wheels - Each week a club member(s) delivers meals from Elder Care Services.
- Miracle League - With other Division 3 clubs, Florida Disabled Outdoors Association, local government agencies, business and private organizations and individuals, Kiwanis supports a special athletic field with a rubberized asphalt surface specially designed to support activities for children and adults with limited abilities.
- Respect it! Protect it! – Each year in conjunction with The Brain Injury Association of Florida’s WalkAbout Brain Injury event, helmets are provided and properly fitted free of charge for children in the Tallahassee community.
- Roadside Clean-up - Quarterly, in conjunction with Keep Tallahassee - Leon County Beautiful, members pick up trash along Richview Road and Pontiac Drive.
- School Back Pack Program – Backpacks with staple food goods are assembled and distributed to help ensure students at Godby High School have access to healthy meals during the weekend and return to school ready to learn
- Southern Scholarship Foundation: SSF provides rent-free housing and cooperative living, to students who lack financial resources, demonstrate excellent academic merit, and exemplify good character attend institutions of higher education. Kiwanis clubs stock food shelves and clean/maintain the Ralph Davis Kiwanis House, home to 13 FSU students. Clubs also provide the manpower to staff the parking lot to fundraise during FSU home games.
- Tales for Tots - Volunteers to read stories to children at Betton Hills Preparatory School in order to encourage them to read.
- Toiletries - Hotel toiletries are collected for local charities who assist the homeless and to make packets to be distributed by members directly to the homeless in need.
- Toy Donations at TMH Pediatric Unit - Members buy and deliver toys to children receiving treatment at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital’s Pediatric Unit.
- Turn About: Members serve on the board and support this private non-profit, family-centered agency providing Child Victim Rapid Response for children who are victims and/or witnesses to violence, and for drug/alcohol rehab for youth and adolescents.
- Zika Prevention Kits – working with Healthy Families Florida, kits containing information and supplies to assist in the prevention of the Zika virus are assembled and distributed to communities at risk.
Service Leadership Programs
Service Leadership Programs are designed to inspire students, as well as adults who live with disabilities, to become engaged members of their communities who work to solve problems and help others through service, eventually maturing to inspire and lead others into service.
- Bring Up Grades or BUG- A program designed to provide recognition to students who raise their grades into an acceptable range and maintain or continue to raise them from one grading period to the next.
- Heritage Trails Community School (formerly PACE)
- Terrific Kids Program - Recognition and mentoring of outstanding pupils ages 6-11
- Ruediger Elementary School
- Builders Club- Builders Club is a student-led community service organization that operates under school regulations and draws its members from the student body. Members learn to work together and develop servant-leaders skills as they serve their school and community.
- Raa Middle School
- Key Club– Key Club is a student-led, high school organization whose goal is to make the world a better place through service. In doing so, students grow as individuals and as leaders by answering the call to lead, summoning the courage to engage and developing the heart to serve.
- Lincoln High School
- Rickards High School
- SAIL High School
- Godby High School
