It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….it was the sea­son of Light, it was the sea­son of Dark­ness, it was the spring of hope, it was the win­ter of despair.” These famous words from Charles Dick­ens’ open­ing para­graph of A Tale of Two Cities were writ­ten in 1859 about con­di­tions in 1775. The first sen­tence from The Kiwa­nis Lega­cy, © 2004, reads “At the begin­ning of the 20^th cen­tu­ry, well sir, the world turned flat crazy.”

So, here we are in 2020, expe­ri­enc­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic, and those sen­tences from the past describe our world. For­tu­nate­ly, ever since 1915, we have had Kiwa­nis and good-heart­ed Kiwa­ni­ans to step for­ward to pro­vide the “sea­son of Light” and “spring of hope” that Dick­ens named.

Mem­bers of the Eye of the Tiger (EOT) eKi­wa­nis con­tin­ue to lead in improv­ing the lives of oth­ers. Through our new part­ner­ship with The Lit­er­a­cy Club, EOT eKi­wa­ni­ans have pro­vid­ed over 1000 books to unlock the pow­er of read­ing for chil­dren dur­ing this time. 

Our EOT eKi­wa­ni­ans are involved in many oth­er projects, such as mak­ing cloth face masks and deliv­er­ing much-need­ed food to those who are hungry. 

Our e‑club mod­el has proven help­ful in inspir­ing face-to-face Kiwa­nis clubs and foun­da­tions to piv­ot to vir­tu­al meet­ings. And while social dis­tanc­ing and orga­ni­za­tion­al shut­downs make in-per­son vis­its dif­fi­cult, EOT eKi­wa­nis mem­bers are orga­niz­ing an e‑club and fin­ish­ing require­ments for oth­er clubs. Final­ly, many EOT eKi­wa­ni­ans are active­ly prepar­ing for club open­ings (includ­ing our planned loca­tions in Indi­anapo­lis) to begin when our phys­i­cal loca­tions open up again.

Since 1915, Kiwa­nis has sur­vived and served through two world wars, a major eco­nom­ic depres­sion, and at least four oth­er glob­al pan­demics. Thank you for your lead­er­ship, hard work, and gen­eros­i­ty in meet­ing our cur­rent chal­lenges and in ensur­ing a healthy future for Kiwa­nis. You bring the best of times.

Onward!

Sin­cere­ly,

Barb Thomp­son

Pres­i­dent, Eye of the Tiger eKiwanis