Clubhouse

Club builds on its diversity

Some of the best ideas come at the weirdest times: In the shower. While driving.

President Kenneth White laughs with other members of the Mankato Diversity club.

For Kiwanian Stewart Ross, immediate past governor of the Minnesota-Dakotas District, his eureka moment came while giving a presentation to a group of diversity educators of the Mankato, Minnesota, school system.

“That night as I worked with them, it occurred to me that these people would join a Kiwanis club if there was a special reason,” Stewart says. “That special reason was diversity concerns.”

Stewart’s brainchild was to build a club that reflected the diversity of the Mankato community.

To make this happen, Stewart broached the plan to an African-American female diversity educator. She immediately wanted to sign up—and she wasn’t the only one.

The Mankato Diversity Kiwanis club chartered with 61 members. Of those 61 members, 23 are non-Caucasian, 31 are women, 23 have doctorates, three are Jewish, and two officers and four board members are African-Americans.