Our club participated in PSC Fall Fest today. We provided the kids attending with free books and candy. They also had the opportunity to decorate their paper hat. We coordinated with Winter Haven High School’s Key Club, one of our sponsored Key Clubs, to create the hats for the kids.

On August 1st, the last Divisional Council Meeting under Lieutenant Governor Jackye was held at the Children’s Museum at Bonnet Springs Park. We had a fabulous time mingling with Kiwanians from our division and learning more about the Children’s Museum.

Kiwanis is a global organization that serves the community one child at a time. The organization itself is broken into Districts, with each district being broken down in to Divisions. Our club currently is within Division 15 of the Florida District. Our division is comprised of Kiwanis clubs from Polk, Highlands, Hardee, Desoto and Glades county. Our District is comprised of clubs in the State of Florida, the Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos.

There are many opportunities to interact with clubs from across our entire organization through conferences, service projects, fundraisers, or interclubs. Interclubs are when multiple members of one Kiwanis club participates in an event or meeting with multiple members of another Kiwanis club. Over the past two months our club has conducted three interclubs with the Kiwanis Clubs of Bartow, Lakeland, and Citrus Center.

On July 20th, a few members cleaned up the trash around Kiwanis Park. We are currently in works with the City of Winter Haven to revamp this park over the next 5 years. Follow our journey as we continue to give our park a make over.

We enjoyed hearing from Holly and Christine from The Visual Bucket List Foundation. They provide opportunities and experiences to children with visual impairments diagnoses. These opportunities are intended to be a special visual memory that will last a lifetime. They are down in Winter Haven this week meeting Lilly and her family; they are providing Lily and her family with an amazing experience of visiting the Great Barrier Reef this summer. #helpingothers #thevisualbucketlistfoundation #winterhaven #kiwanisinternational

On 5/11, we participated in Winter Haven’s Saturday Market, which takes place in the parking lot across from Grove Roots. We provide a children’s activity for all the kids in attendance. As part of the activity, we gave the kids candy and books.

May the 4th be with you! Yesterday, in honor of the Kentucky Derby and Star Wars Day, we combined two opposite themes to bring one fantastic event. We held an open house at Grove Roots Brewing Company to showcase what the Kiwanis Club of Winter Haven is all about. We want to thank everyone who stopped by and spoke about their lives and Kiwanis. We hope you decide to impact our community by joining our club.

On May 4th, we attended the grand opening of AR Workshop. This local business will provide various craft projects for your group. They have a wide variety of projects planned for May, so make sure to check them out.

On April 26th, our spring Drowning Prevention Program concluded with 18 kids learning to swim. We thank the City of Winter Haven’s park and recreation department for partnering with us to provide these lessons. They are provided to kids ages 3 to 10 at no cost to the parent. We hold lessons twice a year with the City, so look out for our next session in the fall.

On April 23rd, three club members attended the quarterly Divisional Council Meeting. The Kiwanis Club of Greater Sebring hosted this meeting. These meetings consist of Kiwanis members from Division 15 of the Florida District of Kiwanis. We heard from candidates seeking the office of Vice Governor, updates from our Lieutenant Governor about our division, Kiwanis updates from Kiwanis International Trustee Matthew Cantrall, award presentations, grant presentations, and elections of our division’s next Lieutenant Governor and Lieutenant Governor-elect. We want to congratulate our current club President, Robert Brown, for his election to the officer of Lieutenant Governor-elect. He will serve during the 2025-2026 Kiwanis year.