| Stoughton Kiwanis Annual Community Projects. - 2023 |
Amount Funded: $2,500.00 |
| Santas Workshop is held in conjunction with the Stoughton Victorian Holiday event in December. The event provides a free childrens activity during the festivities: cookie decorating, a craft activity, and free pictures with Santa.
The Easter Egg Hunt is held in the spring prior to Easter and is open to the public. It provides a free activity for families that they can enjoy and remember.
Scholarships of $1500, $500, and $500 provide three graduating Stoughton High School seniors with funds to continue their education. These scholarships are awarded in May.
Key Club provides Stoughton High School students with an opportunity to engage in community service and to develop leadership skills. The club meets throughout the school year.
Aktion Club provides Stoughton residents with intellectual disabilities with an opportunity to engage in community service and to develop leadership skills. The club meets throughout the year.
The Kiwanis Disc Golf Course is open to the public throughout the year but has most use in the spring, summer and fall. The annual disc golf rally in May. Most of the work maintaining the course occurs prior to the annual disc golf rally, but efforts to improve the course extend into the summer and fall. The course provides an opportunity for families, youth, and adults to engage in a healthy outdoor activity that can be competitive or non-competitive. |
| We are requesting funds to enable our club to hold annual events, provide annual high school scholarships, maintain our support for Kiwanis-related local clubs for (a) youth and (b) adults with intellectual disabilities, and to continue our maintenance and promotion of the Kiwanis Disc Golf Course, which serves children, youth, families, and adults in the Stoughton area.
The grant will also enable us to place less emphasis on fundraising and focus more time on membership recruitment, which is critical for our club to maintain and expand our work in the aftermath of the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, we could not hold what was historically our main annual fundraising event, the Saint Patrick’s Day pancake breakfast, because of health-related restrictions on public gatherings. In subsequent years, we faced concerns about health risks to our older members and insufficient human resources to hold the event because a number of longstanding members moved away, passed on, or faced health challenges. We have not been able to focus on recruitment because of the need to find alternative ways to raise funds to support our efforts. Having a source of funds for fall 2023 through summer 2024 will enable us to spend the time we would otherwise spend on fundraising to focus on recruiting new members to reinvigorate our club and maintain and expand our work in the community.
The estimated impact of the planned events and other efforts addressed by this grant is as follows:
Santas Workshop:
Around 100 impacted (parents, children, extended family members)
Around 55 total volunteer hours for planning, advertising, setting up, staffing, cleaning up, and sending out pictures of children with Santa.
Easter Egg Hunt:
Around 100 impacted (parents, children, extended family members)
Around 30 total volunteer hours for planning, advertising, setting up, staffing, cleaning up.
Annual Scholarships for Graduating Seniors at Stoughton High School
Three students and, by extension, their families are impacted.
Around 5 total volunteer hours for planning, coordinating with the school, presenting the awards, and following up with the scholarship recipients.
Key Club:
Typically the club membership is around 80 students. More community members are impacted by Key Club service projects.
Around 20 volunteer hours for coordinating with the Key Club advisor and officers, attending meetings, planning a celebration dinner.
Aktion Club:
Around 10 members of the Aktion Club are |
|
