Kiwaniscope is published weekly for the members of The Kiwanis Club of Weston, serving the children of Weston, Fairfield County, and the world since 1974.

Good morning ! This week in Kiwaniscope - breakfast meeting on Saturday, Reservoir Run promotion ramps up, Kiwanis and PTO promote kindness and reading, by the numbers, and a new installment of how one Weston Kiwanian is executing on the Kiwanis mission of improving the world one child and one community at a time.

Editor

MEMBERS’ MILESTONES THROUGH NEXT WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Bob Uzenoff's birthday is next Tuesday and Phyllis Gary celebrates her birthday next Wednesday. Happy Birthday!

No wedding anniversaries in the next seven days.

This Saturday, September 23, 2023

Breakfast meeting. Dallas is away, Amy has a dress rehearsal for her presidency beginning October 1.

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall - 8:30 a.m.

LAST WEEK

RESERVOIR RUN PROMOTION RAMPS UP

The 12th Weston Kiwanis Reservoir Run half marathon and 5K foot races and kids fun run are just six weeks away, on Sunday, October 29, 2023. Although we prepare for the event all year, some preparation is only visible as the race day approaches. Last Saturday, Steve Thomas, Reed Ameden, Frank Ferrara, David Weber, and Harry Spencer met at Weston's historic onion barn to hang a banner promoting the event.

This year, the Reservoir Run half marathon will benefit disadvantaged youth-related services and needs identified by the club's foundation with the primary beneficiary Kids in Crisis, building healthy communities where children and families thrive through prevention, counseling, and crisis services available 24 hours a day. The 5K will benefit the Weston Boosters Club for the Captain and Club Leadership training programs at Weston High School.

For more information, visit https://runsignup.com/Race/CT/WESTON/ReservoirRun

Kiwanis photograph by Harry Spencer.

KIWANIS AND PTO PROMOTE KINDNESS, READING

Reported By Reed Ameden, Shelly Rinas, and Barbara Gross as told to Bob Uzenoff

Photographs by Reed Ameden, Lisa Barbiero

It was January 18, 2023. Weston Intermediate School (WIS) Teacher-Librarian Shelly Rinas had a dream. She wanted to add a book vending machine to the school library. She has seen it in her professional experience. Book vending machines have become increasingly popular in elementary and middle schools because they have proven to promote literacy and a love for reading while also serving to support a positive school culture and community.

WIS serves about 450 children in grades 3-5. As the school’s librarian, her goal is to develop a love for reading that students carry with them into secondary school and beyond. The book vending machine would also support and promote kindness and WIS PRIDE (Personal Accountability, Respect, Integrity, Discipline, and Effort), as students can earn vending machine coins by showing WIS PRIDE to classmates or teachers. WIS’s budget, along with the support of our WIS’s Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO), would be able to continue to purchase new titles for the vending machine over the coming years. However, she needed support to cover the initial purchase cost of the vending machine, a custom cover in Weston blue and gold, a four-year warranty, and 150 gold coins.

What to do? Weston Public School Superintendent and former Kiwanian Lisa Barbiero knew Kiwanis is dedicated to changing the world, one community, and one child at a time. Lisa pointed Shelly to Philanthropy Committee Chair Reed Ameden. In her January 25 grant application, Shelly urged that she knew the addition of this vending machine in WIS would improve the lives of WIS students, increase engagement in reading, and promote kindness and respect in our community.

A lot happened between then and June 24. Shelly delivered a healthy baby boy she had been working on, and school classes ended for the summer. By then, the Kiwanis Club of Weston Foundation had decided it could provide half of the funds for the vending machine if Shelly could find funding for the remainder. To the rescue - Weston Intermediate School PTO pledged to complement Kiwanis’s funding. On June 24, Shelly, with a Kiwanis check in hand from the Kiwanis club meeting, was able to order the machine.

The vending machine arrived, and Shelly had a plan. She planned a surprise unveiling. Shelly and Paige Noonan devised a covering for the machine that would fall away and expose the vending machine wrapped in Kiwanis and PTO logos when a ribbon was cut.

Students participating in the summer reading program to be recognized for their accomplishments were invited to and were present at the unveiling event, broadcast live to all the classrooms. Among others, also present WIS Principal Patty Falber, Superintendent Lisa Barbiero, and representatives of WIS PTO and Kiwanis, including Barbara Gross, trustee Reed Ameden, and trustees and foundation vice presidents Tom Glass and Dallas Kersey.

Students who will be involved in the unveiling gather around the shrouded vending machine before the unveiling.

Shelly welcomed all present and in their classrooms remotely online to the event and introduced the students present as participants in summer reading.

Shelly invited top summer reader Adriana Ilicheva to cut the gold ribbon, unveiling the book vending machine. Adriana read 209, most books books this summer!

 Streamers fly as the covers of the book vending machine fall away.

Other Students explained about the vending machine and new program:

"This book machine is full of new books for our WIS students! We have lots of our 2024 Nutmeg award titles and some other brand-new releases from some of our favorite authors. But these books aren’t like the books in the library; these books are for students to keep!

“That’s right. Students get to keep these books! Now is a good time to announce a new project at WIS called Caught Being Kind. When students are Caught Being Kind, they can earn a special gold coin to use at our book machine.

" We’d like to honor our first student who was caught being kind! Would Cole from Ms. Pando’s class please come up?”

“Cole, you were Caught Being Kind when you helped reshelve and organize books during your book exchange. Here is your special gold coin. You may go ahead and select a book."

The book vending machine after unveiling.

Left side wrap: “Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground” is a quote by Theodore Roosevelt. The quote is often interpreted as a call to aspire for more, but to never lose track of who you are. It can also mean to push yourself beyond your limits.

Weston Kiwanians present at the unveiling see the Kiwanis and WIS PTO logos acknowledging their sponsorship of the book vending machine. Tom Glass, Dallas Kersey, Barbara Gross, Bob Uzenoff, Reed Ameden.

Instrumental in bringing the book vending machine grant to the foundation: Reed Ameden, Shelly Rinas, and Barbara Gross.

Follow the link below to view all of the photographs contributed by Reed Ameden, Superintendent Lisa Barbiero, Barbara Gross, and Bob Uzenoff.

BY THE NUMBERS

Assistant secretary Dan Gilbert reported the following Kiwanis items in his most recently filed monthly reports (July and August) as Kiwaniscope goes to press:

• 21: service projects
• 109: service hours
• $6,430: money raised for service
• $1,685: money donated
• $285 Ukraine Aid International Inc.
• $1.400 Weston High School Booster Club, Inc.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Breakfast Meeting

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 8:30 a.m.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Breakfast and Business Meeting with election of a director.

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 8:30 a.m.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Breakfast Meeting

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 8:30 a.m.

Foundation Trustees and Officers Meeting

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 10:00 a.m.

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Breakfast Meeting

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 8:30 a.m.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Breakfast Meeting. Reservoir Run preparation (no speaker today).

Norfield Congregational Church parish hall 8:30 a.m.

IMPROVING THE WORLD ONE CHILD AND ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME

THE KIWANIS MISSION

Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.

Kiwanis clubs and individual Kiwanians complete the mission in a variety of ways, and as they are able. Kiwaniscope in this space will celebrate the many ways the Kiwanis Club of Weston and its members are living the Kiwanis mission.

In the next several issues, Kiwaniscope celebrates the service of Past President Rick Amill's reading this year to teacher Katie DeFranco’s first-grade students at Thomas Hooker Elementary School K-8 school in Bridgeport.

Nearby, you see a thank you note to Rick from a grateful first grader at the end of this year's classes.

Rick has read at Thomas Hooker at least two times per month for more than seven years

In the past, Rick has read at various grade levels at two other elementary schools in Bridgeport, plus at the district-wide Read Aloud Day.

Kiwaniscope is published for members and friends weekly on Thursday mornings September through June by the Kiwanis Club of Weston, Connecticut, Inc.