January 25, 2018 – Delane Titus of Soldier’s Angels spoke to 12 club members.  Soldier’s Angels is a national organization which provides assistance to deployed soldiers, wounded soldiers, soldiers’ families and veterans.  The local chapter partners with various organizations to provide a monthly lunch and entertainment to 30-40 veteran residents of the community living center at the VA hospital complex in Spokane.  They also visit the residents and organize monthly bingo nights.

January 18, 2018 – Our speaker was from Wishing Star, a regional charity that fills wishes for children with possible terminal medical conditions.  They also go beyond the wish to establish and maintain contact with the children’s families to provide support and help to family members.  They have 2 paid staff and their primary fund raiser is Taste of Spokane.  Fourteen members were present.

January 11, 2018 – Chuck Richardson spoke about Paint-a-Helmet, a Kiwanis District program.  The program started in 1997 and is organized by the East Spokane Kiwanis Club.  They give away up to 900 helmets a year – the helmets are plain white and the kids decorate them.  This year it will be on April 21 at the Fairgrounds.    Other organizations including SCOPE and Ronald McDonald house are there to offer information and services. 

Fourteen members attended.  We got information on dinner options for our sweetheart dinner on February 8 at the Marketplace at 5:30pm.  We also learned that Betz K-Kids are preparing valentines to for veteran’s home on the lower south hill. 

January 4, 2018 – Seventeen members were at the meeting.  We did not have a speaker so each person wrote down something we thought other club members did not know about us and we then guessed which member went with which statement.

December 28, 2017 – There was no club meeting.

December 21, 2017 – Thirteen members attended; we didn’t have a speaker so we tried solving some Christmas puzzles.  Several members helped setup the Gifts for Cheney Kids last week.  A community member emailed our club to ask if we did a Christmas yard of the month.  We didn’t have time to organize and promote it for this year but the club and the Cheney Gardeners will consider having a competition next year.

December 14, 2017 – Member Bob Quinn told us about the recent trip he and his wife made to Australia.  Bob also updated us on current weather patterns and forecast for our area.  Betz K-Kids are working on recess buddies and classroom helpers.

December 7, 2017 -  Fifteen members heard a presentation from Mary Reinbold of Transitions in Spokane.  She talked about their current program to build 24 cottages for homeless women and children.  The site will also have a playground and they received a $5,000 grant from Pacific Northwest Kiwanis to help pay for it.  She explained that their program is very structured and seeks to help women with job skills and education and ultimately get them into their own housing. 

November 30, 2017 – Fifteen members heard a presentation by Chad Karthauser, EWU Associate Athletic  Director for business and finance.  He explained the major financing sources for EWU athletics ( about 30% comes from ticket sales and donations) and said that Roos Field has an official capacity of 8,600 but usual attendance is about 10,000.  Typical media game rights bring in about $40,000 compared to up to $20 million for Pac-12 games. “Money games” bring in larger amounts. Playoff game money goes to NCAA with shares to the teams. 

November 23, 2017 – Thanksgiving Day; no club meeting.

November 16, 2017 – Lori Musgrave of the Marketplace, spoke to 16 members about the upcoming Christmas tree gala.  The Gala will take place at the Marketplace and will feature 7 decorated trees, each with at least several hundred dollars of gifts or certificates.  Raffle tickets can be purchased for $1.00 each and purchasers can place their tickets in the collection boxes for the trees they would like to win.  Tickets can be purchased from December 1- December 23.  On December 23 there will be a prime rib dinner at the Marketplace and winning tickets will be drawn by Mayor Trulove.

   We also had reports on activities by Betz K-Kids and Cheney High Key Club.

November 9, 2017 – Fifteen members attended along with 6 visitors from the Northeast Kiwanis Club.  Our speakers were Tami Chapman and Catherine Nero Lowery from the Spokane County Library District.  They talked about the various programs at Cheney for kids:  story time for small children; Camp Kaslo during the summer for older kids' partnering with Cheney schools for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning and reading buddies programs done with the elementary schools.  Other community programs include:  a seed library (take and plant seeds then harvest seeds at the end of the season to replenish the seed library); promoting small business Saturday at the end of November; access to data bases for business use and grant directories. 

 

November 2, 2017 – Eighteen members and one guest heard a youth protection guidelines presentation.  This is an annual training that every club should have.  We also discussed issues related to our rest stop fundraising. 

We had a report on our participation in the EWU Harvest Festival: 10 club members, several Key Club members and one former Salnave K-Kids member helped at the event.

We selected Cheney Outreach and Feed Cheney to receive our Quarter Cup donations; Jeri recommended giving the first 7 months to one organization and then 5 months to the second since we have 3 evening meetings in the first 7 months and don’t collect money at them.