The three Kiwanis Clubs in small Dickenson County, Virginia (population less than 14,000) long have sponsored an annual boys and girls high school basketball tournament. Those clubs, Clintwood, Haysi and McClure River, were the sole sponsors until the new Council Kiwanis Club in adjoining Buchanan County recently was chartered. Now there are four sponsors. The high schools of those communities compete in the tournament.

Not only is this a big event in the communities, but those clubs were smart enough to name their project the Kiwanis Invitational Basketball Tournament. Look at the headline and first paragraph of this article from the Bristol Herald Courier for Sunday, December 2, 2007.

Your club should be as alert as these Southwest Virginia Region Kiwanians. When you sponsor something, or pay a lot of its cost, be sure your name is attached to the project or the event. For example, if you pick up the tab for a children’s reading program at your local library, it should be the Kiwanis Reading Program, just like this event is the Kiwanis Invitational Basketball Tournament.

We may take it for granted that people know about us and our good works. Increasingly, that is not the case, and we need to be not only good workers in our communities, but good publicists of what we do.

By the way, Ervinton is the high school for the McClure River community. Each of these Kiwanis Clubs sponsors a Key Club at their high school.