From fertilizer and peanut sales to a winter golf tournament on the ice, the Annandale Kiwanis Club has tried just about everything in the past 20 years to raise money for area youngsters. Only one has stood the test of time above the others – the annual Share Your Christmas pancake breakfast. Since being chartered by Kiwanis International in September 1990, the Annandale group has raised approximately $40,000 for the Share Your Christmas campaign, which supplies gifts to children in the community who may not otherwise receive any. On Sunday, Dec. 6, the Kiwanis will host its breakfast from 9 a.m. until noon at St. Ignatius Catholic Church. There will be pancakes, sausages and, new this year, an egg bake. In the spring at the annual Annandale Business Expo, the Kiwanis Club hosts another pancake breakfast, which helps raise money for other causes. They include two scholarships the group gives out each year to graduating Annandale seniors, three all-day kindergarten scholarships and a donation to Annandale Youth First. Nothing like pancakes "Nothing works as good as pancakes," charter member Arnie Gruys said. Twenty years ago, Jim Rudolph and then-superintendent of Annandale schools Verle Connor had the idea of forming a Kiwanis club in Annandale. They had been members in another community and had enjoyed the experience so much they wanted to promote it here, charter member and former president Karen Millner said. Those two, with help from Ed Kaz, went door to door soliciting membership. By the time the club was chartered, they had recruited 36 members. To date, the club has raised more than $100,000 for the community. Besides scholarships and Share Your Christmas, over the years the money has gone to support the Annandale Area Community Food shelf, Camp Friendship and the Annandale Care Center. In addition to monetary donations, members are continually donating their time to work with students at Bendix Elementary, Annandale Middle School and Annandale High School. Today the club is led by president Sam Millner, the son of charter members Karen and Roger Millner. He has been helping out with the group since he was 10 years old and can remember serving orange juice at the very first Share Your Christmas pancake breakfast. It was the new group’s first big effort to help youth in Annandale. Arlen Johnson, the principal at Bendix, spearheaded what would become the Share Your Christmas program five years before the Kiwanis formed. "He would notice that a child at school needed gloves or a jacket and he’d call (some friends) up and say can we get together and buy this and that," said Roger Millner, who was among the group of friends. Eventually it became an official project adopted by the United Methodist Church. Each year as the holidays neared Johnson would bring in a list of things he noticed children lacking, and volunteers would go out and buy them. The day after the Kiwanis was chartered, the club held its first breakfast and donated close to $2,000 for Johnson and the church’s efforts. Today other churches in the community have gotten involved, and the Kiwanis donates around $1,500 from the breakfast to the program. Projects like the pancake breakfast have always provided the motivation for the club. "You have to have a project to give members a feeling of doing something together, and it gave us exposure," Gruys said. Today the club has 28 members, a far cry from when it peaked a number of years ago at 58. "We’re always looking for new people to join," Roger Millner said. Kiwanis meetings are held the first and third Thursday of every month at noon hour at Reichels’ Event Center. Members call it an "atmosphere of fun, learning and fellowship" in which everyone has one thing in common – a desire to help the children in their community.
