About Us
A service club in Keystone Heights and Melrose, run by the people who live here.
Who we are
The Kiwanis Club of the Lake Region is a non-profit service organization serving Keystone Heights, Melrose and the communities around the lakes. We are a member club of the Florida District of Kiwanis and of Kiwanis International, a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.
That is the official description. Here is the practical one: we are neighbors who meet before work twice a month, decide what our corner of Florida needs, and then go and do it. Nobody is paid. The club has no staff. What gets done is what members turn up and do.
What that looks like here
Over a typical year the club runs the Book Bus, where children read to children in an ice cream shop on a summer afternoon. It puts on swim lessons in Melrose. It cooks pancakes for teachers before the school year starts, and pays for back-to-school haircuts so children walk in on the first day feeling like themselves. It has helped buy marching band uniforms for Keystone Heights High School. It awards scholarships to graduating seniors heading for college and trade school. At Christmas it runs the Claus Mission for families having a hard year, and at Easter it hosts the community sunrise service. It turns out for the parades, and it puts the flags up along the boulevard.
None of these are large projects. Taken together, across enough years, they are what a community feels like when somebody is paying attention.
Working with young people
Kiwanis is a service organization for adults, but most of what we do is aimed at children – and the part we are proudest of is the clubs we sponsor for young people themselves. Students run their own clubs, choose their own projects and answer for how they go, with Kiwanians beside them rather than in front of them.
Come and see
The club meets for breakfast at 7:30 AM on the first and third Thursday of the month, in the Fellowship Hall at Keystone Heights Methodist Church, 4004 State Road 21. Visitors are welcome at any meeting, and you are not expected to join anything by turning up. Come, eat, see what we are working on, and decide for yourself.
If a morning does not suit, get in touch and we will find another way to introduce you.