The 2008 Capital District Convention will be held this year from Thursday, August
14 through Sunday, August 17th in Richmond Virginia at the
Downtown Marriot and the Richmond Convention Center, just
a few blocks from the State Capitol. Hosted by the Heart
of Virginia Region of the Capital District, this year’s theme
is “Prescription For Success,” and one of the big highlights—not
to be missed—is Friday night’s Birthday Party at the Marriott
to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the District Convention. 
The
final version of the proposed Strategic Plan for our District
will be presented to the House of Delegates for ratification
at
DCON
2008 in
Richmond,
VA
this
summer.
Once
ratified
by the District delegates, the plan belongs to the District
membership and the District Board will be charged with executing
it. St.
Mary's County Supports Kiwanis One Day With Two Projects
by Glynnis Schmidt
The Kiwanis Club of St.
Mary's County brought the spirit of community service
alive by participating in two projects on Kiwanis One
Day, which took place on April 5th. The first project
of the day was the delivery of food to a local food
pantry. What made this project so special is that all
four Service Leadership Programs sponsored by the Kiwanis
Club participated by organizing canned food drives
at their schools during the month of March. Coordination
and promotion of the project was provided by the Circle
K Club at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Other SLP
clubs supporting this event were: St. Mary's Ryken
High School Key Club, Spring Ridge Middle School Builders
Club, and Lexington Park Elementary School K-Kids Club.
The students enjoyed being part of this effort, and
the K-Kids Club was excited to learn their school contributed
the most food (by weight). Circle K contributed the
highest number of individual food items, and put in
the most service hours. They placed collection bags
on every dorm room across campus, returned two weeks later to collect room by room collection night,
April 2nd. Kiwanis members participated by delivering
the food, which was accepted by the St. Vincent DePaul
Food Pantry at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
located in Lexington Park.
The second service project of the day for St. Mary's Kiwanis was the serving of lunch at the Early Childhood Fair at Lexington Park Elementary. Kiwanis provided and served lunch to families and children who were coming to the school to register their children for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten at three local elementary schools. The Fair was coordinated by the Early Childhood Team of St. Mary's County and a number of community organizations participated in the fair to provide health and dental screenings, required immunizations, free backpacks, books, food care packages, and more. Kiwanis was pleased to be able to provide and serve lunch and be part of such an exciting community event serving local families and children.
These activities were planned as part of Kiwanis One Day, a global volunteer action day uniting the entire Kiwanis family, including Kiwanis, Circle K, Key Club, Builders Club, Aktion Club, and K-Kids. More than 600,000 volunteers around the world devoted a few hours to hands-on volunteer service. It is the goal of Kiwanis International that on this special day individuals and clubs will contribute nearly one million service hours around the world in just one day.
