Feature

Taking service to the streets

On the streets of Chula Vista, California, and Davao City, the Philippines, there is a name that bears encouragement to the abandoned, addicted, and aimless. The name is Kiwanis.

In California, the Solutions for Change-Vista Kiwanis club helps homeless children by serving their families through Solutions for Change, a social service organization.

“The average age of the homeless person we served in 2005 was 8 years old,” reports Angela Oxley, president-elect. “Solutions for Change serves 50 homeless families at three family centers with more than 190 beds in a comprehensive continuum of housing, employment, and educational service programs.”

Created with a single purpose, the club targets all of its service work toward the Solutions for Change agency, often in imaginative ways.

“We don’t serve a meal at our evening meeting,” says president-elect Angela. “The club helped to build—and the kids decorated—a huge lemonade stand on wheels that comes out. The kids at the shelter sell cookies and lemonade to the Kiwanians. Everyone loves it!”

The Kiwanians also raise money to support Solutions for Change. In November, the club collected US$90,000 in one evening at the SFC’s “Friend to Friend Party.”

The Durian Davao, Davao City club in the Philippines South District has sponsored a “share a plate” dinner for street children abandoned in Pamanga Village in Davao City, which, according to charter president Dominador Y Lanoy, was “an experience beyond description.”

District Kiwanians also have taken directly to the streets to find and help street children by working with the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“We identified areas of concentration of the children,” explains Mario D. Sison, club development manager for the district. “We talked with them, brought some of them who are willing to safe houses to bathe, receive new clothing, and receive counseling about their lives.”

Those who wanted to return to the countryside with their parents received bus fare for the journey from the Kiwanians.