Eliminate Project

The Year of Participation has finally arrived!

Many of you have already been holding fundraisers and making club and personal donations, but during this year we are being asked to focus on the EliMiNaTe Project.

What does that mean for us here in the New York District? I am asking each club from the youngest K-Kids to the oldest Golden K's to hold at least one fundraiser FOR eLImInATE during this year. You have many local community projects which are looking to your club for assistance. The EliMiNaTe Project does not mean that these groups should be put on hold for the year. We can't let down people who are counting on us. So please think of another way your club could raise awareness and funds to eliminate the scourge of maternal neonatal tetanus.

As you are planning, and perhaps even before you do so, think of the lives you will be impacting and the joy you will bring to parents and families who will not suffer the loss of a child. Many of you have seen some of the videos available on Kiwanis International website. If you haven't, please look at these pictures of mothers with their babies. Linda Christiano has given a beautiful and heartfelt testimony of her own experience in visiting Sierra Leone last year with Jerry and their granddaughter Sophia, a Key Club member. Many of you heard Linda speak at the Mid-Year Conference and the Convention in Niagara Falls. If you weren't fortunate to hear her in person, click on to the Sierra Leone link and hear part of her story there.

A good way to start is to ask yourself: "How many lives can I realistically try to save?" Five? Then I will give $9; Ten? $18; One hundred? $180, etc. At a club meeting encourage each other to think about how many lives the club wishes to save. Then set a goal that you will want to reach.
And so I set a challenge before ALL the members of the New York Kiwanis Family. I implore each club to have a fundraiser and each member to donate something - time, money, and/or both. I know that in these economic times not everyone can donate funds for a Zeller Award, but each of us can give SOMETHING. When the year of participation is over, I hope that each and every one of us can hold our heads up with pride and say, "I had a part in this."

AFTER you have a fundraiser, please send me a description of it and a picture if possible. I hope to have a rolling scroll in what I am calling "Kirmse's Korner" on the EliMiNaTe section of the District website. Send it to me preferably via e-mail: kirmse@fordham.edu or by postal mail to my address on our website.

I will be awarding prizes for the most original fundraisers in each branch of the Kiwanis Family, so let your imagination soar!

As always, and even more so now, EXCELSIOR!

Column Posted on Web Site October 30, 2012