Kiwanis: Our kid brother

Posted by Rita Gayle

Barry introduced Mark Brewer of the Kiwanis Club. Mark joined the Kiwanis in 1967 while serving as a pastor in Ohio. He is on the Board of Directors of the Kiwanis Club of Brampton. In 1999 he established the Kiwanis Foundation. Mark commends the Rotary Club on being a part of the community service and commented that Kiwanis is Rotary’s “kid brother”.

The Kiwanis started in 1915 and has 660,000 individuals connected with Kiwanis around the world. They focus on working with children. In Brampton the club started in 1957 and they are instrumental in helping Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The Brampton club has around 30 members.

Brampton Kiwanis Club is known in the community for their celebrity clowns program. They try to make kids laugh and they are always in the Santa Clause Parade.

The Kiwanis club focuses a lot on leadership development among kids; high school programs, university programs. It’s an international organization with average age of 58 yrs old. In Brampton there is the Kiwanis Memorial Park where individuals can have a tree planted in memory of someone special.

Mark established the George W. Harley award for outstanding community service. The award is for $5,000 and a tree placed in Kiwanis Memorial Park. The Kiwanis Club do a lot of work with family life, Salvation Army, abused women and they work with approximately 20 organizations in the community. Mark hopes that the Kiwanis can partner with Rotary to achieve goals and commitments that we are all trying to fulfill.