President's Message

One new member, one limitless catalyst for change

Nelson Tucker Kiwanis International President

It might start with a handshake. A smile. A mutual interest that kindles casual conversation.

The dialogue glides gently to the topic of your Kiwanis club; to the preschool children your club reads to at the library. The curly-haired girl with the strawberry-jam smile and delightful twinkle-eyed curiosity. The little freckle-faced boy, who each week looks for you, hugs your knees, and begs a story—who, you recently learned, has spent the past year bouncing through relatives and foster care because his mother is addicted to drugs. The myriad children in whose lives you know you are making a difference.

There it is—the nod of interested understanding. It’s a spark indicating he or she “gets it.” Call it a spark of opportunity, because it opens the door to invite this friend/co-worker/new acquaintance to your next meeting—or better yet, to go with you next time to read at the library.

But wait. Consider carefully before you bring this prospective member into your club. Take heed, because this person could just change your club’s dynamics, its energy level, its capacity for new ideas. If you invite this person to Kiwanis, your club’s possibilities could be forever changed.

At least I hope so.

You see, a new member is more than a drop in the bucket toward Kiwanis’ goal of 1 million members. He or she is new ideas. A fresh perspective. Renewed passion for service. Crucial confidence in projects and fundraisers yet untried. Perhaps the key to revitalizing your club, to catalyzing a domino effect of membership growth, to driving a service project beyond your wildest dreams and effecting change in the world like never before.

He or she is another set of helping hands, another servant heart, and another contributor to your club’s cumulative impact in the community.

Consider what’s at stake. Consider carefully the resulting endless possibilities of bringing this one person into membership. Consider the endless opportunities lost without this person. And then, wisely, take that spark of interested understanding and ignite it with an invitation to join Kiwanis—to be one who touches the lives of children who have strawberry-jam smiles and freckle-faced hope.

To be one who can make a difference in your club and in the world, one child and one community at a time.