Rodney Copenhaver, President, Arlington Noon Kiwanis 2006-07
Some examples? This past year in youth services alone the 54-year-old club was involved with providing scholarships to both UTA and TCC or graduating high school seniors, developing the Arlington Alliance for Youth and adopting Short Elementary School for a variety of benefits.
At Short, for example, the club has provided a number of mathematics and science teaching items, new books and other instructional materials.
Kiwanis was also involved with Bikes for Tykes, the Boys and Girls Club, MAC Special Olympics, the AISD Foundation, the Kiwanis International Foundation, Boys and Girls State, the Reading is Fundamental program, the Children’s Miracle Network and Ronald McDonald House.
And that was just for youth services. In other community services involving volunteer activities, cash donations or a combination of both, the Kiwanis were involved with Rebuilding Together, Arlington Charities, the Arlington Life Shelter, Safe Haven, Mission Arlington, Salvation Army and Arlington Urban Ministries. The local chapter also honored a “Teacher of the Year”-an annual event.
“The club’s primary purpose has been service in a variety of ways to the people of Arlington, with special emphasis on children and youth,” said Janette Workman, who nominated the organization for the award. She is also a member of the club.
Workman sites the past year as a representative indicator of Kiwanis’ contributions to the community.
“From September 2005 to August 2006 alone, the members volunteered more than 3800 hours in helping to make Arlington and its citizens a better community,” she said. “The 2005-2006 budget shows that the chapter invested $33,764 back into the community.”
Workman said that although Kiwanis members are greatly entertained by their meetings and activities, they’re also highly serious about what they do. “We are caring adults involved in community service and we help build the character of the next generation. We’re family of volunteers consisting of men, women and students who are ‘doing for others’ in the community.”
The club has also been a powerful incubator of other worth-while organizations. It has sponsored, for example, creation of four other Kiwanis Clubs in both Arlington and Mansfield. It sponsors a Boy Scout troop and has been instrumental in creation of five Kiwanis-related youth organizations, such as Key Clubs, in local schools.
The funds that Kiwanis pours back into the community are earned the “hard way,” through a giant annual pancake breakfast that has become an Arlington tradition.
Arlington Star-Telegram columnist O.K. Carter, in a recent column about civic clubs with effective fundraising mechanisms, listed the Kiwanis Club as being among his top seven.
“The Kiwanis Club of Arlington has put back into the Arlington community more that half-a-million dollars over the past half-century in an assortment of benevolent and educational causes,” Carter wrote.
Despite that kind of attention, Workman says that many Kiwanis contributions to the community go unnoticed simply because club members are concerned far more about cause and effect than they are receiving credit.
This article appeared in the Star-Telegram STARS Special Section on Sunday, November 12, 2006. No author was given. 
