President Mike Boland welcomed the Club to a new year on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 and led the Pledge of Allegiance with members following along on Zoom. Mr. Boland gave the invocation and welcomed five guests from the Granville-Allied Gardens Club who were attending as an Interclub. We always love having Clubs visit and the Butterstein’s are favorites!

After reminding attendees that the meeting was being streamed live on Facebook he welcomed Club Vice President Susan Day as the Chairperson of the day. Ms. Day spoke briefly about a local non-profit that had been invited to speak and how impressed she was with their mission and then welcomed Emily Moberly, the founder of Traveling Stories.

Emily started off by asking all attendees to share their favorite book and it was interesting to hear what publication Club members and guests held near and dear to their hearts. The replies were broad ranging and it was equally as fascinating to hear the story behind the book choice as it was the title itself. Ms. Moberly shared her story as a teacher in Honduras where she asked a group of students to tell her their favorite books. And in a group the size of the Kiwanis club only one student raised their hand. Which began Emily’s lifetime passion to bring stories and reading to children around the globe.

President Boland moved into the next portion of the meeting which included welcoming two SD Kiwanis Community Funding Grant Recipients with Kaye Kelley from the Home of Guiding Hands and Lauren Welch from Urban Corps of San Diego. Both organizations were recent recipients of funding from the San Diego Kiwanis Club & Foundation and took a few moments to update members on how the resources were being used to help children.

There are two club members with January birthdays and President Boland is one of them while joining him is longtime member Drue Jordan! While Mike determined just how much money he owned in fines Club members donated cash in honor of Bill Gibbs. Bill lived to be 106 years old and attended luncheons until the end where he would donate a dollar and say, “I’m Still here!” Members gave in honor of a retirement, a new job, a former mentor, the Laurels for Leaders Society, and a variety of other worthy items.

After announcements and updates the Club dispersed and the planning continued for more upcoming meetings and events.

Be sure to subscribe to our Kiwanis YouTube Channel as well as following us on Facebook. See you next on Tuesday, January 19th with Sidd Vivek from Junior Achievement.