Members of the Kiwanis Club of Medicine Hat give their best impression of a slide rider at Central Park in this September 2018 file photo. The club is celebrating its 100th anniversary this Saturday in the park.--NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
The Kiwanis Club of Medicine Hat is looking back on 100 years of service to the city, and perhaps even more eagerly to the future.
Club president Perry Bergum spoke on the long history of the club, which began in 1924, and has both held strong and changed significantly over the course of the decades.
“When I first got involved, it was more of a businessman’s club,” said Bergum. “Women weren’t accepted as members. That changed a while in, I think Kiwanis international voted to allow women members in around 1986 … We have quite a few now, and they all contribute tremendously.”
The club has significantly fewer businessmen than it once did, said Bergum, but it does have the honour of many higher-profile members, including the president of Medicine Hat College, the chief of police and Dr. Ken Sauer.
Both the Golden K Kiwanis Club and the Gas City Kiwanis Club were born out of the Kiwanis Club of Medicine Hat, largely due to seeking different meeting times, said Bergum. These days, their projects are different as well, and Bergum is deeply grateful for the work of the other clubs.
While they may have come a long way since first being charted by Dr. Gershaw, their focus has remained the same, as a service club that seeks to help the youth of the city.
“We’ve had programs called Young Children Priority One, and we’ve got a Key Club, which is for high school students, and we sponsor them, we also have a great school club called K Kids,” said Bergum. “So those are student leadership programs. We also sponsor the army cadets here in Medicine Hat.”
The club is deeply involved in 4H and the Southeast Alberta Science Fair, which both help youths grow and explore things that matter deeply to them.
One point of particular pride for the Club is Kiwanis Central Park, which they have poured significant time, volunteer hours and funds into making the local attraction for residents and their families it is today.
“Over the years, our club, in conjunction with the City of Medicine Hat and the province, we’ve done a lot of improvements,” said Bergum. “We’ve applied for Community Facility Enhancement Program grants, and that has allowed the building of that kitchen, the water spray park, the natural playground, all of these improvements to that area to really make it something special.”
The club is still going strong with over 30 members, said Bergum, but they are finding that their membership is beginning to age out of the more strenuous activities, and they will be focusing strongly on recruiting new individuals who want to help the region in the coming years, alongside their ongoing fundraising efforts via BINGO nights, casinos and the sale of hot dogs and other goods at various events.
Bergum expressed gratitude to the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede for its recent partnership in a successful raffle, which will go far in helping with Kiwanis’s various projects.
In the nearer future however, there is cause for celebration, and the club invites residents to come and enjoy an afternoon in Kiwanis Central Park on Aug. 24. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the club will be present selling hot dogs and hamburgers, as well as anniversary frisbees for the disc golf course present in the park.
“We’ll have brochures on Saturday, people who are interested in the club. We’ll have a celebration 100th anniversary pull up banner that we had made. It outlines our projects, our major projects,” said Bergum. “We hope to see everyone there, and maybe attract some new members.”
