By Dan Gilbert.

The Kiwanis Club of Weston conducts a food and personal care products drive on Saturday, January 25, 2025 at Weston Shopping Center to benefit Weston Food Pantry clients. The event provides Westonites with the opportunity to help our neighbors in need. Kiwanians will be at the shopping center from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., collecting shelf-stable food products at Lily’s and personal care products at the Weston Pharmacy.

Fall’s been a busy time for the club. During October, Kiwanis held its13th annual Weston Kiwanis Reservoir Run half marathon, 5K, kids fun run foot races. Registrations totaled almost 500 runners. Men from West Point’s cross-country team ran the half marathon. The day is a community-wide effort supported by Weston’s Board of Selectmen, public schools, the police department, Weston Volunteer EMS, Weston High School Key Club and Girl’s Track Team, and the Scouts BSA Troop 788.

Kiwanians dressed up as witches and goblins to help transform the Lachat Town Farm’s
landscape in the Haunted Halloween production of “Meteor, The Immersive Theater
Experience.” Strange things happened at Lachat as children and their parents encountered
disturbing creatures and supernatural surprises. The 45-minute interactive Walking Tour was
filled with live actors (some Kiwanians), horrific scenes, and chilling surprises. The children,
their parents, and Kiwanians had a wonderful time.

Weston Kiwanis is dedicated to serving children. Through a combination of community service and philanthropy, the club supports worthy causes in Weston and neighboring communities. The club has donated over $900,000 since 2000 to help children. Weston Kiwanis meets each Saturday at the Norfield Congregational Church parish hall. Meetings begin at 8:30 a.m. A full breakfast is available for $10 and is complimentary on their first visit for individuals exploring membership. All are welcome.

By Frank Ferrara

Today, Wednesday, December 18, 2024, the Kiwanis Club of Weston provided new winter coats to keep 145 needy children warm this winter. In the nearby photograph contributed by Frank Ferrara, Frank, and Harry Spencer are pictured with a few of the delighted three- to five-year-old recipients.

Weston Kiwanis Community Service Committee members volunteered over 80 hours to ensure 136 children of Head Start Family Services in Norwalk and 19 children of Rippowan Park complex In Stamford would have a coat to keep them warm.

Working with Kiwanis Club community service funding, Costco Wholesale® of Norwalk managers played an essential role in accomplishing this mission.

Head Start programs are provided at no cost to eligible families. They provide high-quality pre-kindergarten education for children who are 3 years old until they enter kindergarten.

Head Start, delivered in Norwalk by the Family & Children’s Agency,  is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. It is the oldest and largest program of its kind.^[1] The program’s services and resources are designed to foster stable family relationships, enhance children’s physical and emotional well-being, and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills. The transition from preschool to elementary school imposes diverse developmental challenges that include requiring the children to engage successfully with their peers outside the family network, adjust to the space of a classroom, and meet the expectations the school setting provides.^[2]

Kiwanians, families, and friends celebrated the season with a special breakfast on Saturday, December 14, 2024, our last meeting of 2024.

Party organizers Frank Ferrara and Harry Spencer, with help from a talented elf (named Amy Jenner), decorated Norfield Congregational Church parish hall for the occasion and greeted us, serving mimosas during gathering time. Reverend Dr. Bernard Wilson engaged us in his invocation, reminding us how Christmas was no “ordinary” night. The Honorable Lisa Wexler explained the meaning of Hannukah. If we didn’t before, now we know the difference between a menorah and a hanukkiah with a demonstration of the latter.

Chef Bill laid out a spectacular breakfast spread. Dr. David H. Connell, Director of Music and Worship at Norfield, on the grand piano, joined by professional soprano Jennifer Barron, performed Christmas and holiday favorites after breakfast, leading to the arrival of St. Nicholas himself (sounded a little like Bill Brady) and one of his elves, who bore somewhat of a resemblance to Roy Marsh. Santa received requests from the children before departing.

By Dan Gilbert

Each December, the Kiwanis Club of Weston wishes everyone happy holidays with a wreath constructed with greens donated by Weston Gardens, decorated and hung by Kiwanis members on Weston’s historic onion barn on Weston Road, opposite Weston Shopping Center.

Weston’s historic onion barn photograph by Jim McMorris.

The 2024 wreath was constructed with boughs from Weston Gardens by Steve Thomas. Karen Chrisley created the decorative bow.

Kiwanis serves the children of the world. The Kiwanis Club of Weston also serves families and our larger community. Through a combination of community service and philanthropic fundraising, the club supports worthy causes in our community and surrounding area. The club meets each Saturday from September through June at the Norfield Congregational Church parish hall, 64 Norfield Road, Weston, Connecticut. Meetings begin with breakfast ($10) and run from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Doors open at 8 for coffee and conversation. All are welcome.

Kiwanis International chartered the Kiwanis Club of Weston on November 30, 1974. As we complete our first 50 years of service to the children of Weston, the region, the world, and other populations in our area, Kiwaniscope takes this opportunity to share our early history with its readers, as told by the club’s founder.

By Warren P. Joblin

The genesis of the Kiwanis Club of Weston, Connecticut, was in 1974. The club’s founder, Warren P. Joblin, was a Kiwanis Club of Westport-Weston member. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Division 1 of the New England District. At the time, Weston had no men’s civic club, and he felt Weston needed a men’s organization for civic and social action. Weston was primarily a bedroom town with no substantial commercial or professional activity, and it was traditionally the membership base for a Kiwanis Club. With few potential members present in the town during lunch or dinner, the regular meeting times for Kiwanis Clubs, he decided to build the Club as a Saturday morning breakfast club. It is believed that Weston Kiwanis was the first club in Kiwanis International to have its regular meetings on Saturday morning for breakfast.

The Westport-Weston Kiwanis Club initially opposed the idea of a Kiwanis Club in Weston. However, on November 5, 1974, at the urging of the Lieutenant Governor, the Club’s President, John Bradshaw, appointed a New Club Building Committee of members Harry Freedman, Fran Pastorelli, and Edward Heirtzler to work with the Lieutenant Governor to build a new club in Weston. The [Kiwanis New England and Bermuda District] Lieutenant Governor published a notice in the Weston Forum announcing a meeting to form a new club in the Parish Hall of St. Francis Church on Saturday, November 23, 1974. Meanwhile, he asked many of his neighbors and friends to join the new club. The organizational meeting was held on November 30, 1974, with 27 members joining Kiwanis. Officers were elected in the next week, with John Perkins as the club’s first president, and the club moved its meeting place to Norfield Congregational Church parish hall.

Club membership grew quickly. When the club held its charter night on Saturday, March 1, 1975, at Cobbs Mill Inn, its membership reached 60. One of the first official acts of the club was to assume sponsorship of the Weston High School Key Club, which had been founded several years earlier by Mr. Joblin. The club’s initial fundraising events were the sale of discount merchant booklets to support the construction of the Leavitt Pavilion and the pancake breakfasts held initially on Palm Sunday. For many years, the club managed the Weston Little League Snack Shack as its principal fundraising activity.

The club’s great success can be attributed to the quality of its membership. New members continually add vitality to the Club, which averaged ten new members yearly in the first decade of the 21st Century. In 2009, Kiwanis Magazine recognized the club as one of the premier Kiwanis clubs in the world.