Kiwanis Kids’ Day to be held Saturday

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Kiwanis Club will hold its annual Kiwanis Kids’ Day with a pancake breakfast, parade and kids’ games on Saturday, Sept. 17.

Kiwanis members will be up early that morning preparing the breakfast, which will be served from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the big tent on the east side of the Fairfield square. Tickets are $6 in advance or $7 at the door, and kids 10 and under are half price.

The parade will begin at 10 a.m., and run from the Fairfield High School to the downtown along East Broadway Avenue. Those who wish to participate in the parade should gather in the west parking lot at the high school by 9:30 a.m.

The theme of this year’s parade is “Working Together,” and parade floats can win prizes based on how well they decorate their float according to the theme. Kiwanis will hand out prizes to the top four floats. Fairfield’s middle school and high school bands are scheduled to participate in the parade, too.

After the parade, members of the public are invited to stick around in Central Park for activities and games including pony rides, a clown, pedal pull, barrel train rides and face painting. Kiwanis will have a dunk tank set up along with a bouncy house, and DJ Midnight Crystal will supply the music. The events will wrap up around 1 p.m.

New this year is a partnership between Kiwanis and the Fairfield Farmers Market. After the parade, kids can visit the market in Howard Park where they can get a card to have stamped by the many vendors in the park. After they’ve gotten the requisite number of stamps, they can turn in their card for a drawing to be held at noon. The winning entries will receive free items from the market’s vendors.

John Reeves has been organizing the parade for the past six years, and has been involved in Kiwanis since 2006. He said he wanted to join the club when he saw how much work it was doing.

“When you’re doing volunteer work, it’s amazing how much 35 people can get done compared to one person,” he said. “And Kiwanis is a very active service club. We call it a well-oiled machine.”

Reeves said all proceeds from that day’s pancake breakfast will go toward community projects, like the new playground equipment in Howard Park.

Kiwanis club member Daryn Hamilton said the club decided not to raise ticket prices for the pancake breakfast even though the cost of food has risen noticeably in the last year.

“Even though the price of the ingredients for pancakes and the sausage has gone up, we decided we wouldn’t raise prices because we want to make it easier for families to enjoy the day,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said it feels good to be back in the swing of things in 2022, two years after Kiwanis had to cancel Kids’ Day because of the pandemic. That year, the club also missed out on its other big fundraiser, which is working the campground during the Midwest Old Threshers’ Reunion in Mt. Pleasant. Luckily, the club had enough money in the bank to provide its regular contributions to local organizations.

“We weathered that really well, and we’ve been able to bounce back,” Hamilton said. “We did Old Threshers this year, welcoming people to the campground and answering questions for them about camping. That was a good fundraising event for our club. It’s a way for us to raise money from outside the community so we’re not always asking the community members to put money into the club.”

In addition to putting on Kids’ Day and helping at Old Threshers, Kiwanis participates in First Lutheran Church’s “Come to Supper” meal. Demand for the free meal has grown considerably since it began in 2017, when it was served twice a month to 35-50 people. Since 2019, it has been served every week, and now serves more than 100 people.

Hamilton said the club is always interested in welcoming new members. The club meets on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at the McElhinny House at 300 N. Court St. in Fairfield. Meetings begin at 5:30 p.m., supper is served at 6 p.m., followed by a short business meeting that wraps up by 7 p.m. The club’s president is Scott Willman, who will pass the torch to the next president in October, which will be Aaron Kooiker, Fairfield’s city administrator.

The club has put on Kids’ Day ever since 1965 when it was organized as a bowling trip for middle school students. The pancake breakfast began the following year, and now it’s one of the town’s oldest traditions.

“It’s been a Fairfield tradition for four generations,” Hamilton said.

To learn more about the club, contact Hamilton at 641-919-1861.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com