Our Favorite Service Projects

Service is at the heart of every Kiwanis club, no matter where in the world it’s located. Members stage approximately 150,000 service projects and raise nearly US$100 million every year for communities, families, and projects. By working together, members achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone.

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Go Baby Go Project

Each year we sponsor the assembly and presentation of a Go Baby Go Car to a child with the help of Shriner’s Hospital in Oak Park. Here’s a video that explains a little bit about this project

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Hospital Doll Project

A hospital experience can be overwhelming for an adult. Imagine what it is like for a sick or injured child. The child enters a strange environment of bright lights, strange noises, uncomfortable furniture, and lots of strangers. Someone takes away clothes and starts poking and prodding. The child has no sense of control. Through all this, the child hurts.

Here’s a way to help these children: the gift of a Kiwanis doll, which can serve many purposes.

• Boredom buster. A child can draw on the doll with markers, distracting him from discomfort and boredom.
• Because the doll is soft and squeezable, it can be a comfort when the child is anxious.
• An outlet for expression. The child can express his fear or unhappiness by drawing a face on the doll.
• Also, the child can mark on the doll the injury or pain she feels. This allows adults to discuss concerns or pains more objectively with the child.
• Doctor’s demonstration. When medical personnel uses the doll to show a child what will happen during the procedure, it helps the child understand. Sometimes the child can even help “doctor” the doll. This converts the activity into something the child has control over. Often, this allows a child as young as 2 or 3 years old to undergo the procedure much more calmly, whether it’s putting on an oxygen mask or having a cut sutured. Explaining a procedure using the doll as an example can actually save medical personnel time because children are so much more cooperative, according to Gerry Silk, a clinical nurse educator at Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Each child keeps his doll when leaving the hospital, a positive reminder of the hospital visit.

Our club, in conjunction with a group of volunteers at Lexington Square of Lombard, produce over 1000 dolls per year that distributed through mission trips, Doctors without Borders trips, as well to local pediatricians.

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Trauma Teddy Program

In conjunction with the Lombard Fire Department, our club provides for free, small stuffed bears for the firefighters to distribute whenever they encounter children in a stressful situation. This could be at a car accident, a fire, or even a family dispute. Each year we set time aside to “dress” the bears with a t-shirt that has the name of our club.

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