Recipe for membership success

Take one great service project. Add several eager volunteers. What do you get? A Kiwanis club that keeps on growing!

Hundreds of volunteers helped to build the new park, which boasts 80 acres of fields, shelters, and a playground.

Don’t miss it! Playground and park projects have proven very popular with Kiwanians all around the world. Look for your upcoming April 2007 Kiwanis magazine for more examples of how Kiwanis is bringing safe play options to children.

Hampstead Kiwanis Park isn’t very old, but it has seen a lot of action, including Halloween trick-or-treaters and (below) Easter egg hunts.

The Kiwanis Club of Hampstead, North Carolina, has enjoyed great success in growing the club’s membership over the past couple years. And one project in particular has drawn the most new members.

 “Nine of the members who joined during 2005-06 joined after helping our club assemble a playground at Hampstead Kiwanis Park,” says Heather Williams, Hampstead Kiwanian and Carolinas District Division 18 lieutenant governor. “This park is an 80-acre facility. We have completed most of the first phase (two athletic fields, one baseball/softball field, picnic shelter, and a playground). A concession stand with restrooms is in the works.”

The club had 31 members in September 2005. Now there are 51 members—and counting.

“The majority of our members join to help with the park,” Heather says. “We had an Easter egg hunt there in the spring, and we are planning on making it bigger next year. We also had trick-or-treat in the park this year. It was a safe place for children to trick-or-treat rather than wandering the streets for candy.

“Every time we plan a project, we have a lot of community support. The projects are what get the people of our community excited about Kiwanis, and they want to be a part of it. The projects are also what keep our members active. If we have a little bit of time between projects, meeting attendance always drops. So service projects are the most important thing to membership, in my opinion. Start people out serving and they will want to keep working to make their community better.”