By Brandon Farmer, Assistant Editor – Powell County Kentucky
On Monday, August 24th the Kiwanis Club of Powell County called a chapter meeting and press conference to reveal a major organizational announcement. Media and members of the beloved and longstanding association of community servants gathered at Thyme Savor Restaurant in Bowen for a special statement. After being introduced by Club President, Misty Marsh, Kiwanis PR Coordinator Ethan Moore took the podium and made the surprising announcement that the Powell County Chapter, which was founded in 1992, would be dissolving effective immediately.
“This is kind of a heavy meeting,” Ethan said in his address, “We’re in a situation where volunteerism is a challenge in our community. And it’s not because people don’t want to serve – it’s because people are serving a lot of different places.”
He went on to explain how members are in a position to decide where their time is most valuable and prioritize where that time is invested. He provided a first-hand example of this and demonstrated how he often wishes to spend any free, available evening with his wife and infant son, as is the case with most family-forward members of the community. He added that many community servants, such as those that serve on the Kiwanis Club, are simultaneously members of other boards and organizations, and many are active in the churches. For this reason, it is the case for many volunteers that their schedules are spread incredibly thin, and this has made it difficult to find individuals to commit to serving the club in a consistent manner.
“For years, Powell County has been made up of a lot of different individuals who believe deeply in giving back,” Ethan continued, “Kind-of my parents in the club were Lisa and Tommy Mays, and before them, Ovie and Josie Hollon. Serving with those folks has been a privilege of my life. They’ve taught me so much in this club, and their relationship to me means so much in so many different ways. It is with great sadness that we are officially announcing that the Kiwanis Club of Powell County is closing its chapter of service as a club in the community,”
“Of course, this decision wasn’t made lightly,” Ethan explained, “We’ve discussed this over about the past two years, roughly. We kind of came to a head at the end of last year.”
He added that the Kiwanis did not host their annual radio auction in 2025 because the club did not want to ask community members to invest their money while their hearts were struggling and this decision was looming.
“This decision was made primarily due to lack of volunteer participation in the club,” Ethan said, “It is required by Kiwanis International that there are certain benchmarks that are met by our club and it was becoming a difficult challenge to meet those benchmarks.”
Additionally, he explained that club dues were set to increase at the international level, and it would have added to the already present struggle to recruit new members or sustain existing ones.
“We want to take a moment to extend our sincere thanks to our present club members and our past club members who gave their time, talents, and resources to this organization,” Ethan stated, “We also want to thank all the businesses and organizations and volunteers and families and community members who came alongside and supported the Kiwanis Club through the years.”
Ethan then turned the floor over to Club Treasurer, Kayla Carroll.
“In our final meeting, the members voted to disperse some of our remaining funds to community organizations that meant a lot to us, that meant a lot to this community, and that would also help us continue some of the programs that we had,” Kayla explained, “We had discussions with some people, threw around some ideas of ways to continue these programs…we didn’t want to see anything that we did die; we didn’t want to see the Easter Egg Hunt come to and end; We didn’t want to see the Christmas [Parade]; We didn’t want to see the light displays. All of these things that we have worked very hard for our community and to bring these things to our community.”
Kayla proceeded to hand out checks to organizations that have agreed to pick up the mantle of the Kiwanis Club and continue to serve the community with the many children’s-focused offerings, events, and activities. The Powell County Public Library was provided with a check to help fund their Imagination Library Program.
“The library does amazing things in our community,” Kayla said, “If you have not taken your children or been involved with any of their programs – these ladies do great things. I think this is our third large donation to the Imagination Library. We helped them when they were looking to get started and we were very excited for this program when they started.”
The Imagination Library has helped over 800 community children, with 550 kids registered currently and 300 already graduated, and they hope to continue to expand and grow this program.
Checks were also presented to the Powell County Lions Club who will be overseeing the continuation of the popular, annual Easter Egg Hunt; to Stanton Parks and Recreation who will be ensuring that the beloved annual Christmas Parade continues; and to the Youth Resource Centers of schools around the Powell County District to aide them in their commitment to community children and to help support their ongoing programs.
Please join the Powell County Patriot in providing a heartfelt salute and our sincerest show of appreciation to the past and present members of the Kiwanis Club of Powell County for their 34 years of service to our community and unparalleled level of commitment to our community children over these many, wonderful years.
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