Past Governor

A year ago I had such high hopes for our new Kiwanis year. And a year later, I still have that same vision and fire inside of me. I still hope to build our future, grow our membership, support all of our foundations, support all our SLP's, support our veterans and support any individual cause that's dear to us.
Although my journey as our governor ceases, my Kiwanis journey continues. Technically, for the next year my responsibility continues as Immediate Past Governor. So I will not be too far away from the everyday life of our district. So my passion to serve and carry on all we started, will keep moving forward.
My year started great with my fund raiser in my home parish in Brooklyn. We had a fun night with great music and food. The proceeds from that night helped support our three foundations. Plus we supported the family of a local NYPD officer who was killed in a motorcycle accident. Moving forward we never stopped. Any club, division, or SLP meeting, where ever it was, I tried to attend. My goal was to stay connected with our membership.
Leading up to my year and thinking about a project, with the help of some thoughtful friends and seeing the effects of everyday stress on people, I decided to choose Mental Health Awareness. My goal was to have all my lieutenant governors have someone speak at their division meetings and also on the club level. We had hoped just talking about this would help people in need to seek help. My First Lady Debbie chose as her project Children's Homelessness after finding out that in every community there are numerous children that are homeless.
When our health crisis hit, following our government and our International president’s directive, I immediately stopped all our activities. We stopped all meetings, fund raisers, and events. Through technology, we found this thing called a virtual meeting giving us the ability to meet through our phone or our computer. Where would we be if this happened a few years ago. As I have said we are lucky to have this available to us. And it has been very entertaining at times when 20 people are talking at the same time. But the positive is that we are meeting.
As things improved, we started slowly and carefully to get back to in-person meetings. The first few times I got dressed up and it felt funny to not wear shorts and a casual shirt. It hit me even more to know we need that person to person connection. After visiting the North-Central Club meeting in their parking lot, I pushed for others to follow in a safe way. Depending on your area of the state, please try to meet in person. If that can't happen, we must try to have a virtual meeting. If I can do it, SO can you. Just open the e-mail and click on it, it's very simple. We need to stay connected.  The distance will hurt us and all of our hard work we have done will be in vain.
I would like to sum up our year. Even though we were cut down, we NEVER gave up. We found new ways to raise money. We saw other ways to help with so many people needing food. We fed people, supplied food banks, fed first responders, fed front line workers, gave out supplies of all PPE to those in need. So to me it was a success because we made it, we survived. People in our communities know how strong Kiwanis is. They know we are there for them. We all might be a little disappointed but we can't be discouraged, we are stronger than ever.
Now more than ever I am so proud to have served as the New York District Governor for this past year, BUT I am even PROUDER to have been a KIWANIAN this year.
First Lady Debbie and I want to wish Governor Brenda and First Gentleman Peter much success in the year ahead.

Column Posted on Web Site November 30, 2020