‘You find your niche’: How service clubs like Kiwanis, Rotary attract new members

During my years as a service club member from 1987 to 2010, something bothered me. How would the club move into the future without younger members?

It turns out that service clubs, more essential than ever because federal and state money is lean, are doing quite well — but, of course, could always use more members.

In the early 1990s, service clubs and charitable organizations in the Tri-Cities were plentiful and strong. The general mantra was to try to get more young people involved in the clubs.

Though that sounds good in terms of keeping a club strong in the future, it wasn’t practical then and isn’t today.

Today’s service club leaders would gladly welcome younger members, but they know where to target recruiting efforts: Find retired, newly retired or about-to-retire men or women who would find the experience rewarding and have the time to make it part of their weekly routine.

In the meantime, have “feeder” clubs and programs in the high schools for your club, or engage with young people through your services in any way possible. In short, teach them the importance of what service clubs do and hope it pays off later.

At a recent meeting of the St. Charles Kiwanis, membership committee member Mark Powell encouraged club members to invite a friend or acquaintance to learn about Kiwanis and consider joining.

The St. Charles Kiwanis, with its 90 members, is one of the most successful clubs in its Kiwanis district, and enjoys a strong high school Kiwanis program. It all helps with the club mission of helping children in the community.

“You just have to keep trying to help grow the club,” Powell said. “This is a very healthy club, and it just amazes me.”

Like any club, about 20% of the members will go out and make the effort to get new members, Powell noted. “But in this club, people are really passionate about it,” he added.

Realizing younger people with children and time-consuming jobs aren’t as likely to join service clubs, Brian Henry, president of the Tri-Cities Exchange Club, said the key is to lure active members. In many ways, it would be a quality-over-quantity approach.

“You find your niche, like when someone retires and they have plenty of good years left. We have seen people join our club who recently retired or are semi-retired and they are very active,” said Henry, whose club has 28 members with a main mission to support child-abuse prevention programs, family wellness and patriotism (giving kids flags to wave on parade routes).

“We feel we are doing pretty good, and we would like to have more women in the club, but more and more people are out there wondering what they can do in retirement,” Henry added. “We think we have a lot of good stuff to offer, and a way to give back to the community.”

The club makes its connection to the high schools through its ACE Awards program, which provides monetary donations to students who have achieved goals in school despite tremendous obstacles in their lives.

The Geneva Lions Club, with 63 members, has also seen the value of retirees and longtime members working on the club’s national goal of providing eyeglasses for those in need.

“The majority of our active members are new retirees or those who have been in the club, 20, 30 or 40 years now,” said club president Elliott Bortner.

“There was a time when you were expected to be in a service club, whether you were part of a business organization or community service,” said Bortner, actually the youngest club member at age 36.

“I have friends who are commuting to Chicago or somewhere else, and it is hard for them (to consider a service club),” he added.

For years, the Lions have followed the premise of “every one, get one” in terms of each current member trying to bring in at least one new member.

“We have been able to keep the momentum going by adding new members the last several years,” Bortner said.

The numbers illustrate that effort. Eight of the members have been in the club 30 or more years, but 29 have joined in the past six years.

The Batavia Rotary Club did something that other clubs wouldn’t mind emulating. Over the past two years, the club grew from 24 to 48 members, while keeping ties with the Batavia High School Interact Club, and creating a “Friends of Rotary” organization for those too busy for weekly meetings but who could help at fundraisers or other Rotary functions.

For the most part, a good, old-fashioned membership drive delivered the results.

“We doubled our club membership primarily by being intentional about sharing who we are, the impact we make in the community, and by directly inviting people to join us,” club president Michael Shoultz said.

The result was more members to continue the club’s national cause of eradication of polio worldwide, as well as aiding various community functions.

When community leaders visit club meetings, Rotary members explain the club’s goals and functions — and ask those people to “join hands” with the club in some manner, either with their own membership, sponsoring an employee or becoming a “Friend.”

“In the old days, Rotary used to have an attendance policy, but now there is no such thing,” Shoultz said, illustrating a change to make it easier to be a member.

Plus, the price is right for the “Friends” alternative to being a club member, and six people have joined that group.

“It doesn’t cost anything to be part of the Friends of Rotary,” Shoultz noted. “They can come to our social events, meetings or fundraisers as it aligns with their schedules,” he added. “It’s a way to keep moving the membership needle forward.”

Feedback about big boxes

A couple of weeks ago, I asked what was to come of the large retail spaces being vacated along Randall Road, most notably the At Home store in Geneva at Randall Road and Fabyan Parkway and the Crate & Barrel site in the Geneva Commons.

Some readers weighed in on the question and, of course, the desire for a Mariano’s grocery store came up yet again. Others mentioned having a children’s indoor party/play area would be a nice addition, with examples being Funtopia, Ball Factory Playground, or something like the DuPage Children’s Museum.

One reader was more concerned about what might fail next, and she was hoping it wouldn’t be Best Buy.

But Harold Miller of Campton Township expressed a different concern, especially for those in and north of St. Charles, fearing Randall Road south of Route 64/Main Street in St. Charles has become a traffic nightmare.

He points out that backups start at Oak Street, Prairie Street and Route 38 and continue all the way south to Fabyan Parkway.

“Who wants to shop at Geneva Commons and farther south when it takes forever to get there?” Miller asks. “Compare that with the ease of getting from central Campton Hills to the stores and shopping centers on Randall Road in South Elgin and western Elgin.”

Miller suggests some better traffic light timing, especially for vehicles crossing Randall, would ease some backups.

“The mayors of St. Charles and Geneva should be screaming at the county transportation department, as they are losing tax revenue because shoppers go to the convenient (less traffic) locations.”

Finale for Snopko Socks

Through a social media post, we learned that St. Charles brothers Wyatt and Porter Snopko have ended their annual holiday socks and underwear collection drives after 10 years.

The boys have likely taken thousands of socks and hundreds of pairs of underwear to area homeless shelters and organizations serving families in need.

It was their idea from the start, and it deserved a mention in my column every year they did it.

The boys surely know this, and hopefully have heard it many times, but our thanks go out to them for addressing a need in our communities.

It’s not just 10 years of Snopko Socks for these boys. It’s likely the springboard to a lifetime of caring about others.

Imagine what it would be like if we all had a Snopko Socks project to embrace, and used the spirit behind that in everything we did.

Donate a prom dress

Last year, the Community Helpers Impacting People In Need organization in Batavia distributed more than 800 prom dresses to students in more than 40 schools and seven charitable organizations.

When considering that CHIP-IN has done this for many years, thousands of girls who might not have otherwise experienced their high school prom because of the costs have been able to do so.

For this year’s Prom Dress Giveaway, the organization is accepting donations of clean prom dresses in good to excellent condition between Saturday, Feb. 1, and Friday, March 13, at the Batavia Public Library checkout desk. Donations of purses, jewelry and new makeup are also accepted.

As in the past, the Prom Dress Giveaway is open to any student in any school district, regardless of need.

CHIP-IN Batavia operates as a fund within the Batavia Foundation for Educational Excellence. Any monetary donations provided for the dress giveaway would be used to pay for tuxedo rentals and prom tickets for Batavia students.

Checks should be made payable to Batavia Foundation for Educational Excellence, with “CHIP IN Batavia” written on the memo line.

• dheun@sbcglobal.net