Kiwanis Club of Cottage Grove and Creswell to merge and form new Coast Fork Kiwanis Club

Two local Kiwanis Clubs have recently agreed to combine their resources and merge into a single area club to increase service to youth in the Southern Willamette Valley.
In the upcoming months, the Kiwanis Club of Cottage Grove and the Kiwanis Club of Creswell will combine to form a new club to be named the Coast Fork Kiwanis Club. The combined clubs will continue their established focus on serving the needs of youth in the area.
Each of the existing clubs has 12 to 16 members, and both clubs have regularly met on Wednesdays for lunch. It’s anticipated the new club will continue meeting on Wednesdays under a schedule that is yet to be finalized.
The Kiwanis Club of Cottage Grove was formed in 1970 and has operated for nearly 50 years helping the youth and community in and around Cottage Grove. The Kiwanis Club of Creswell was organized more recently in 1992 under a Kiwanis International charter.
The Creswell club was the newest of the existing nine clubs within Kiwanis Division 74 in Lane and Douglas counties. The nine clubs of Division 74 are organized within the Pacific NW District under charter by Kiwanis International. The newly formed Coast Fork Kiwanis Club is presumed to remain in Division 74.
Cottage Grove has been the home of two Kiwanis clubs over several decades, and the other existing club, the Bohemia Sunrisers, will continue their activities and programs in service to the community. Historically, the Sunrisers have regularly met for breakfast on Wednesdays at the Koffee Kup.
All three of these existing clubs have developed considerable good will within their respective community, and they each regularly conduct several activities and fundraisers every year.
The two “noon” clubs intend to combine their funding and membership and leverage those resources to achieve even greater levels of service to the youth in the South Valley area. Kiwanis International is a global community of local clubs, members and partners dedicated to improving the lives of children in their community.
Kiwanis International was formed in 1915 and has more than 600,000 members in over 16,000 clubs operating in more than 80 countries. Membership includes thousands of youth, who joined in Junior High through college age clubs. Creswell and Cottage Grove High Schools both have an active youth club.
Every community has different needs, and Kiwanis empowers members to pursue creative ways to serve the needs of children, such as fighting hunger, improving literacy and offering guidance. Over the past 50 years, these two merging Kiwanis clubs have raised and reinvested well over a half million dollars back in to our South valley area.
Local Kiwanis Clubs are always seeking additional members to help in their activities and programs and guests at their lunch meetings are always welcome.
Watch this paper for new details on meeting times and places for the Coast Fork Kiwanis Club. Contact Don Ehrich at [email protected] for additional information on our local Kiwanis opportunities.