The Kiwanis mission is to be a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time. Fountain Hills Middle School has benefited from volunteers from Noon Kiwanis of Fountain Hills for over 20 years, and the clubs are back in full swing after the pandemic.

The Builders Club and K-Kids at Fountain Hills Middle School assisted Kiwanis as recently as this past December at Breakfast with Santa, and they set plans in motion for 2023 at their meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 3. The students will volunteer at three big events this spring: Super Pancake Breakfast, Fountain Festival of Fine Arts and Eggstravanganza.

Both the Builders Club and K-Kids offer leadership positions, including president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. There are at least two Kiwanis volunteers at each meeting, but the students and their leaders make their voices heard about what service projects they want to be a part of.

The first meeting of 2023 was more business oriented than most meetings, but it proceeded as all meetings do. The club officers led the meeting and brainstormed service project ideas for the future, and then the two clubs came together for a service project.

The K-Kids and Builders Club ran their business meetings on opposite ends of the middle school cafeteria, and they met in the middle afterward. To start 2023, they worked on posters for Fearless Kitty Rescue.

“We usually do some type of collection,” Marcia Hoenle said. “This year the kids want to collect food and toys for Fearless Kitty [Rescue]. The students are very motivated about making a difference by doing things that are kind and helpful throughout the community.”

Bernie Hoenle and Matt Jefferson work with seventh and eighth graders in the Builders Club, while Marcia Hoenle and Toni Keyes work with students in fourth to sixth grade with K-Kids. The Hoenle’s have worked with the two clubs since 2015, and they, along with other Kiwanis volunteers, are trying to grow engagement back to pre-pandemic levels.

Last semester, the students made God’s Eyes by weaving a design out of yarn on a wooden cross and then donated them to Children’s Hospitals and Ronald McDonald House Charities. The students wrote letters to accompany the gifts and the K-Kids and Builders Club also collected about 400 lbs. of dog food for the Extended Hands Food Bank and worked on sleeping mats for the homeless.

The students will assist with cooking and more for the Super Pancake Breakfast on Sunday, Feb. 12. Noon Kiwanis does an annual breakfast on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday from 8 a.m. to noon at the Kiwanis Activity Center, 16957 E. Kiwanis Dr., and all proceeds go toward service projects, scholarships and grants for students.

The club students will also help around booths during the Fountain Festival of Fine Arts & Crafts later this February, and they’ll help Kiwanis during Eggstravaganza on April 8. Sign up sheets for volunteering at these events will be out at the next meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

The clubs usually meet on the first and third Wednesdays of every month. Both clubs currently have around 15 members, and students can join at any time by speaking with the school advisor, Steffnie Beck. There is no fee to join, but parents/guardians must figure out transportation for their children after school.

The Builders Club started in 2000, and K-Kids started eight years later. The meetings are only an hour long after school, and kids enjoy the snacks and sense of community they get while assisting Noon Kiwanis. The clubs feed into the Key Club at the high school, and the adults always encourage Key Club members to come back to visit and embody their ideals of leadership and community service.