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We are serving food with the Salvation Army!
January 25, 2025
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
825 7th Street, San Diego, CA 92101
Networking Night!
February 5, 2025 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Societe Brewing
8262 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92111
Come mix & mingle with your fellow Kiwanians.
Open invitation. Guests are encouraged to attend!
Food Available from Chacos Tacos
No Host Bar
Governor's Visit
Divisions 11, 21, 31, 37
February 8, 2025 ~ 9 am, San Marcos Community Center
$15 per person for brunch
Join with Kiwanians from across the San Diego region for a day of fellowship, food, and service in celebration of the visit of California-Nevada-Hawaii District Governor Doug Frost!
Join us for Lunch
Program: Saving San Diego! The role of landscape and open space in maintaining our quality of life.
Speaker: Glen Schmidt, FASLA
February 18, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
Elijah's Restaurant, 7061 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92111
Glen Schmidt, FASLA
Founding Partner of Schmidt Design Group
As San Diego political leaders push for more housing at much higher densities, landscapes, parks, and our canyonlands are critical to maintaining our quality of life, health, and well-being. Today’s speaker has been a leader in shaping our region’s future, advocating for and designing the outdoor places where we live, work, and play, and making the region a compelling place to visit. From Waterfront Park Downtown, to Civita Park, to the River Park at SDSU Mission Valley and hundreds of sites between and beyond, Glen Schmidt’s vision has helped to mold San Diego’s future.
Glen is the founding partner of Schmidt Design Group, a 42-year-old award-winning landscape architecture and planning firm headquartered in San Diego, CA. His firm has been recognized with over two hundred and fifty local, state, and national design awards including nineteen local Orchid Awards from the San Diego Architecture Foundation. In 2005, Glen was inducted as a Fellow in the national American Society of Landscape Architects for “Significant Works of Landscape Architecture”.
Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Glen has developed and promoted a landscape design style that embraces San Diego’s Mediterranean climate and positively contributes to San Diego’s unique environment, while improving the quality of life for all San Diegans. Chances are, you all have experienced and benefited from the legacy of outdoor spaces he and his firm have designed.
A native San Diegan, Glen has committed considerable time to community service serving on over thirty-five local community, state, and national boards, commissions, and technical advisory committees.
Monthly Division Council Meeting
Hosted by xxx
February 19 | 6:00 p.m.
Napoleone's Pizza House | 619 National City Blvd.
February 22, 2025
Laurels for Leaders 68th Annual Awards Ceremony
* New Look | New Location *
LaurelsforLeaders.org
Program: Thank You for Not Ignoring Me
Speaker: Dr. Kwane Stewart, Project Street Vet
March 18, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
A graduate from the renowned Colorado State University Veterinary program, Dr. Stewart has been a California practicing vet for over 26 years. He has worked in nearly every part of the profession - honing his clinical and business expertise.
His journey started in 1997 as an associate and emergency clinician in San Diego. From there he climbed the ranks quickly, becoming the Chief Medical Officer of VETCO Hospitals, Inc. in 2003. Later he would take the reins of a struggling municipal shelter as County Veterinarian and reverse one of the worst euthanasia rates in the country during his five-year tenure. In 2013, he became Chief Veterinary Officer of American Humane, and Director of their legacy program, No Animals Were Harmed®, protecting over 100,000 animals every year around the globe on film and TV sets. Now he serves as the Chief Veterinary Board Officer for Kismet, Chief Medical Officer for HolistaPet and Vet Advisory Board Member for Fetch Pet Insurance.
He has been sought for his expertise by many media outlets and major companies – including Disney, United Airlines and Sea World – for guidance to improve their animal care standards. He has been featured on the TODAY Show, MSNBC, FOX, CNN, Dr. Oz, Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson and others. Among many other accolades he was recently recognized and awarded CNN Hero of the Year 2023. He is known for his outspoken, compassionate, charismatic and genuine nature.
Today, his career has evolved into another new journey: His true calling - helping pets and people in need.
“The Street Vet”
Many years ago, during a five-year tenure as a Shelter Veterinarian in a struggling, depressed area of California, Dr. Kwane began to form a true appreciation for those that struggle to afford health care for their pets.
One day, on a whim, he headed downtown with some medical supplies. He set up a table near a homeless food bank and invited anyone with a pet to be examined and treated at no charge. It was the most rewarding day of his career. Afterwards, he made more consistent efforts to find the unhoused, wherever they were, and give free medical aid to their pets.
Now, years later, his journey is chronicled on a docuseries, called “The Street Vet”. It follows him as he travels the streets of California helping pets, and people alike, while retrieving some of the most remarkable and inspiring stories of sacrifice and hope. With that came the founding of Project Street Vet, a 501(c)3. As Founder and President, Stewart’s nonprofit provides free veterinary care, treatment, and support to the pets of individuals experiencing homelessness and/or financial hardship and is expanding across the country.
March 19 | 6:00 p.m.
Mid-Year South Education Conference
March 29, 2025
Register at:
https://k02.site.kiwanis.org/2025-mid-year-south-education-conference/
Program: High School Scholarship Luncheon
April 15, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
April 16 | 6:00 p.m.
We are volunteering on Earth Day with
I Love a Clean San Diego
April 26, 2025
More info TBD
Program: Ricardo Rabines and Taal Safdie, co-founders of Safdie Rabines Architects
May 20, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
Ricardo Rabines and Taal Safdie are the Founding Partners of Safdie Rabines Architects, an award-winning architecture, interiors, and urban design firm in San Diego. The husband-wife team met while completing the Master of Architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, and went on to establish SRA in 1993 with an initial emphasis on custom single-family residences. More than three decades later, their portfolio has grown to include numerous project types, from academic facilities and civic buildings to mixed-use housing, bridges and infrastructure, and large urban master plans.
Taal and Ricardo’s work aims to capture the essence of each project’s site, and is driven by a mission to create significant, meaningful places. Their designs are guided by the betterment of the public realm and provide indoor and outdoor gathering spaces that encourage interaction. Their work consistently embraces sustainable design principles and integrates nature within the built environment, enhancing the well-being and identity of surrounding communities.
A selection of notable projects include the Scripps Seaside Forum conference center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which hosts researchers from around the world and is a favorite local wedding venue; the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, designed into a vast hillside to provide commanding views of downtown Los Angeles; UC San Diego’s Epstein Family Amphitheater, an on-campus public venue for concerts, lectures, and other wide-ranging events; and the San Elijo Lagoon Pedestrian Bridge, innovatively suspended from Interstate-5 to provide new pedestrian connections to a popular North County trail system. The firm has also designed nationally, including the mixed-use Crystal Flats development for the Walton Family Foundation in Bentonville, Arkansas; Evora, a luxury live-work community in Las Vegas; and the new Lusail Pedestrian Bridges that trace the waterfront in Qatar’s second-largest city.
Throughout their careers, Taal and Ricardo have been active members of the architectural community, participating in lectures, juries, and conferences locally, nationally, and internationally. They continue to be actively involved in the design of every SRA project, setting the tone for the creative direction of the firm’s body of work and its influence on public spaces throughout and beyond San Diego.
May 21 | 6:00 p.m.
Program: San Diego History
Speaker: Roger Showley
June 17, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
Roger Showley, retired Union-Tribune reporter and former president of the Balboa Park Committee of 100, is a third-generation San Diegan. He graduated from UC San Diego in 1970 with a major in history and joined the UT in 1974. He focused on growth and development in the Home and Business sections with special attention downtown redevelopment, urban planning and architecture, historic preservation and housing, commercial development and big public and private projects. In addition to his journalistic work, he has written seven books on San Diego history, taught extensions classes for UCSD. Since retiring in 2018, he has focused on Balboa Park, where he headed the Balboa Park Committee of 100, and served on the boards of several organizations, including the San Diego Architectural Foundation, Friends of San Diego Architecture, Citizens Coordinate for Century and San Diego Yacht Club history and library committee. He and his wife, Carol, live in Scripps Ranch and have two grown children and one granddaughter.
June 18 | 6:00 p.m.
Program: Artificial Intelligence
Speaker: Dr. Aaron Elkins, Director of the James Silberrad Brown Center for AI at SDSU
July 15, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
July 16 | 6:00 p.m.
Program: TBD
August 19, 2025 ~ 12:00 p.m.
August 20 | 6:00 p.m.
September 17 | 6:00 p.m.
Join our Club and perform extraordinary things in your community!
Kiwanis Club of San Diego is a 501(c)4 non-profit organization.
3276 Rosecrans Street, Suite 202, San Diego, CA 92110-4893
