Get involved and make a difference: Kiwanians get fulfillment from public service
By Chelsea Retherford | Living 50 Plus
Pam Fleming remembers when her fellow Kiwanis Club members voted “yes” to appoint her as the first female vice president of her Sheffield Chapter, but that memory is bittersweet.
Although enough members backed her, one member strongly voiced his disapproval with a warning: If they allowed a woman to serve as vice president, that meant the role of president could be up for grabs for her too.
“I wanted to go, ‘I’m sitting right here! I can hear you,’” Fleming recalled. “I’m not trying to make it a male/female thing, but it was definitely a different time.”
It was the early 1990s.
By 1996, Fleming did step up as president of her club, and that same member — the one who protested Fleming’s rise as an official voice of the chapter — became one of Fleming’s more vocal supporters.
“He came up to me sometime later, and he goes, ‘I was wrong. You made a good president,’” she said. “I would consider him one of my really good friends in the club.”
Just 10 years earlier, it would’ve been impossible for Fleming to join Kiwanis as the international organization had only voted in 1987 to end a 72-year men-only policy. Even after Kiwanis International delegates voted with overwhelming support to make the change, it took local chapters a little longer to catch on.
Fleming, a Tuscumbia native, said Sheffield was one of the first clubs in the Shoals to embrace the change. The club began accepting its first female members in 1988, the same year Fleming was invited to join.
“People always ask me — when they find out I graduated from Deshler — they’re like, ‘Why didn’t you join the Tuscumbia club?’ Well, it’s because they weren’t taking women at that time,” she said.
However, even after the Sheffield club was the first to change, she was met with some opposition from members.
“When I joined, and when they took in the first women, some of the guys quit,” she added.
Despite the chilly reception from some, Fleming said many of her fellow members received her warmly. Among those were a few co-workers (Fleming was serving as a director for YMCA at the time) who had initially invited her to join.
Still, at most meetings, Fleming said she was the lone woman in a room of 50 to 60 men.
Still, she knew it would be worthwhile to accept the invitation into the club because she saw it as a way to network and make lasting connections in her community.
She also had a desire to give back.
“Kiwanis was kind of a natural (club to choose) because it’s always been about helping the children of the world,” she said. “The more I was in Kiwanis, and the more I learned, it wasn’t just about helping the children that were in Sheffield. There were projects that they did that would be helping in the state of Alabama and then projects that were worldwide too. So, that kind of struck my interests because there were multiple ways of helping.
“Everyone, I think, in every civic club has that desire to help,” she added. “If there’s a child with a need, they’re going to want to fill that need. No child should suffer. I mean, if you’re talking to a Rotary member, you know one of the Rotary Club’s big international projects was to help eradicate polio worldwide.”
One such international project for the Kiwanis Club is its ongoing effort to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) around the world.
Since 1994, Kiwanis International has partnered with UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, to raise funds for salt iodization in a program that has reached people in over 100 countries and territories like Armenia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines and Yemen, according to the Kiwanis International website.
“We go to the grocery store and buy it for $1.09 off the shelf, and we eat way too much of it. There were children — not here in the U.S. — who didn’t have iodized salt like we have,” she said, listing preventable diseases and complications like goiters, miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects, stunted growth and mental disabilities caused by IDD.
“On the international level, Kiwanis has raised millions and millions of dollars to go and to build salt plants in these Third World countries so that children could have iodized salt,” she said.” Being a part of that was a very eye-opening experience.”
In her time with Kiwanis, Fleming has had other opportunities to serve on the state, national and international levels.
After being appointed as president of her local chapter, she was appointed as a state lieutenant governor for the North Alabama corridor, and eventually, she even got the chance to serve as an elected member on the Kiwanis International Board.
In this position, she got to see the impact of another Kiwanis International Eliminate Project, which aimed to eradicate maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT).
That initiative began in 1988 when the World Health Organization estimated 787,000 newborns were dying annually of neonatal tetanus. WHO called for the elimination of the preventable disease at its 42nd assembly the following year.
In 2010, Kiwanis International joined that fight and again partnered with UNICEF in its fundraising efforts.
By 2015, the annual estimate for deaths from neonatal tetanus had fallen to 34,000, and Cambodia, India and Mauritania had joined the list of nearly 40 countries that had officially eliminated MNT, according to Kiwanis International.
“As part of Kiwanis, from that international perspective, when we chose (MNT for) The Project Eliminate, we sat and watched videos of children throughout the world dying of tetanus. Babies dying from tetanus,” Fleming said. “We saw the excruciating pain and the horrors of this when all it takes is a tetanus vaccine. A very simple, inexpensive shot that we — all of us people in the United States — have.”
Fleming said the experience serving on the international board helped shift her own worldview.
“You know, some people may go, ‘We don’t have people in Alabama die from tetanus. We don’t have people in the U.S. die from tetanus. Why do we want to do this?’ Well, because there’s a child somewhere in the world who is suffering. We can fix that, so we need to fix that,” she said.
Tom Wissert, a member of the Florence Kiwanis Club, agrees. He points out that getting involved on a local level in any capacity, big or small, can have a major impact.
“Don’t you think that all of us should have a heart to do community work?” he asked. “Don’t be afraid to get involved in something, even if it’s a small step. Get involved in something.”
Wissert, who joined the Florence club after moving to the Shoals in 1992, said he’s always found a way to be involved in service-minded organizations wherever he was residing at the time.
A native of Florida, Wissert said he was a part of two different civic clubs, Rotary and the Jaycees (formerly the Junior Chamber of Commerce), while he was living in Covington, Louisiana.
When asked why he chose the Kiwanis rather than join a Florence chapter of either of the other two clubs he’d previously been affiliated with, he chuckled a little and said, “No particular reason.”
“I think maybe my goal is to be one of everything,” he added with a laugh. “I guess next time I’ll join the Lions Club.”
Wissert, a Florence City Schools board member who is also active in the Knights of Columbus #3989, continues working as a life coach and counselor, specializing in couples therapy, anxiety, depression and ADHD, even as he remains dedicated to community service.
“I run my own business, so I get to set my own schedule. It does make things easier,” Wissert said. However, he doesn’t feel he has all that much to juggle by staying involved with the Kiwanis Club.
“To tell you the truth, as far as Kiwanis goes, we put in four or five days of work with our annual Pancake Day, but the rest of the year is really easy. It’s just eating lunch,” he said.
By eating lunch, Wissert means showing up to the club’s weekly meetings at noon.
“We’re one of the more traditional clubs that still meet every week,” Fleming said of her own club. “We meet every Wednesday. Tuscumbia’s club meets every Tuesday, and Florence meets every Friday, but there are also internet clubs and young professional clubs. Muscle Shoals started a new Kiwanis Club a couple of years ago, and they meet every other week.”
Fleming and Wissert said anyone interested in joining Kiwanis can look up their local or neighboring chapter and attend a meeting to see what getting involved is all about.
After joining, members may choose projects and initiatives that mean the most to them, like Wissert, who helped his Florence chapter organize a new annual awards program that recognizes police officers and first responders in the area.
“We ask the fire department, the police department, the sheriff’s department, and our local EMTs to give us the name of someone who’s done good work,” Wissert said, explaining that this spring, the club will honor local heroes for their service in 2024.
The 2025 First Responders of the Year awards mark the fourth year the club has held the awards.
“We have (the honorees) come to our meeting. They receive a plaque, a little bit of money, and then they present on what’s going on their departments,” Wissert said. “It’s an opportunity to show that our club appreciates what these people do.”
Like Fleming, Wissert also believed he could step up and serve his community through leadership opportunities in his club. Before he was appointed as his club’s vice president, he served as secretary for five years.
Wissert said the position meant overseeing all the meetings and workings of the club, but his role as vice president is just as involved.
This year, Wissert was in charge of leading the planning for the Florence Kiwanis Pancake Day, which gives back to local children’s service initiatives and organizations like Children’s Museum of the Shoals, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Shoals, and area Attention Homes.
Wissert said he’s volunteered for Pancake Days for as long as he’s been a member of the club, but this was his first year to work beyond the griddle.
“My legs are telling me it’s a hard job,” he said with a laugh as he helped greet guests and sell tickets at the breakfast on March 7.
Wissert said before the event he was heavily involved in the planning, organizing the purchase of ingredients for the pancake batter and all the fixings, securing all the cooking equipment, and coordinating with the venue on setup arrangements.
“That’s just the planning, and then on Thursday — setup day — we were here from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then we’ll have cleanup day on Monday,” he said.
Fleming said her Sheffield chapter also considers its annual Pancake Days one of the club’s most significant local fundraisers.
“Kiwanis Clubs are known for Pancake Day, and that’s all over the country,” she said. “You can go to a Kiwanis Club in any state in the U.S. and someone is going to be doing a Pancake Day to raise money.”
As a Kiwanis representative on the state and national levels, Fleming said she’s enjoyed getting a firsthand look at some of the different ways clubs from all over Alabama, and throughout the U.S., approach their different fundraising efforts or service initiatives.
One of the most memorable experiences for her came about 20 years ago when she was serving as lieutenant governor of Kiwanis in Alabama, and the Kiwanis state governor had introduced a project to build four boundless playgrounds — one in Mobile, one in Montgomery, one in Birmingham, and one in Sheffield.
“The unique thing about our community was that all the civic clubs came together to do this,” Fleming said, beaming over the fact that Riverfront Park in Sheffield was the first of the four inclusive playgrounds opened through the state project.
“What made this project so successful here was that it wasn’t just a Kiwanis project,” Fleming said. “We pulled the community together, and it was Colbert, Lauderdale, people from Huntsville, Decatur and throughout north Alabama. They gave money. They came to help build. Key Club kids were coming in from schools from all over the place to help work.
“The Association of General Contractors were here, and they were so amazing and wonderful. I can’t say enough about them,” Fleming added.
“It was just absolutely amazing how all that occurred, and it was all through these other service clubs. Rotary, Lions Club, I mean everybody was just like, ‘We’re going to help the children. We’re willing to do this. We’re all willing to serve.’”
Fleming and Wissert said they hope to see more young people get involved with civic clubs throughout the Shoals, even if it isn’t Kiwanis. Of course, they each said they’d love to see their Kiwanis chapters continue to grow.
“Membership is one our club’s biggest items right now. We need members,” Wissert said, adding that camaraderie with his fellow members is a great reason in itself to get involved.
“It’s all about the relationships I have with these guys,” he said. “Some of them I’ve been in the club with for 20 years; some have just been here a couple of years now, but we build relationships every week.”
“I can tell you, some of my best friends are in this club, and they were people I didn’t know before I joined Kiwanis,” Fleming said.
“To leave your workplace, go to your Kiwanis meeting and forget about the stress, the chaos and everything going on around you, and then you get to go have a good time and interact with people who have a common interest. For us, it’s about helping children.”
KIWANIS INTERNATIONAL
ABOUT THE CLUB: Kids need adults who care. That’s why people join Kiwanis clubs. Kiwanians are part of a global network of clubs and members who partner with each other and with organizations whose missions align with theirs. All around the world Kiwanis International is serving kids who need it the most.
ESTABLISHED: 1915
MOTTO: Serving the children of the world.
MEMBERSHIP: 445,167 members in 14,147 adult and youth clubs in 85 nations. Kiwanis International offers three clubs for adults (Kiwanis, Aktion Club for adults with disabilities, and Circle K International for college and university students) and three clubs for youth (Key Club for students ages 14 to 18, Builders Club for students ages 11 to 14, and K-Kids for students ages six to 12).
IMPACT: Every year, Kiwanis members stage more than 1.3 million service projects and raise nearly $390 million for children, families and communities around the world. Kiwanis Club projects are needs based and range from building playgrounds and stuffing backpacks with school supplies to purchasing medical equipment and providing meals for families in need. The average Kiwanian makes an impact on the lives of 106 children.
WEBSITE: www.kiwanis.org
JOIN A LOCAL CHAPTER
FLORENCE KIWANIS
MEETING TIMES: Every Friday at noon
WHERE: Marriott Shoals Conference Center, 10 Hightower Place in Florence
CONTACT: Go to florencekiwanis.com or the Florence Kiwanis Facebook page, or send an email to info@florencekiwanisclub.org.
MUSCLE SHOALS KIWANIS
MEETING TIMES: The first and third Thursdays of each month at noon
WHERE: Shoals Bistro, 1311 6th St. in Muscle Shoals
CONTACT: Go to the Kiwanis Club of Muscle Shoals Facebook page, or online at KidsNeedKiwanis.org.
SHEFFIELD KIWANIS
MEETING TIMES: Every Wednesday at noon
WHERE: Park Place, 500 N. Montgomery Ave. in Sheffield
CONTACT: Go to the Sheffield Kiwanis Facebook page or send an email to SheffieldKiwanis@gmail.com.
TUSCUMBIA KIWANIS
MEETING TIMES: Every Tuesday at noon
WHERE: Helen Keller Public Library Annex, 511 N. Main St. in Tuscumbia
CONTACT: Go to the Tuscumbia Kiwanis Facebook page or send an email to matt.kirkland1776@gmail.com.