On the FIRST day of December the San Diego Kiwanis Club met for their bi-monthly noon meeting and enjoyed true fellowship and friends! President Mike Boland rang in the meeting with the official Kiwanis bell and invited everyone to join in the opening pledge and song. And what a song it was! In a nod to young and old the Club enjoyed the classic seasonal song “Little Drummer” presented as a duet from a 1977 video recording of Bing Crosby and David Bowie. It is too good to miss so we included it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kfdEyV3RQ

Mr. Boland thanked members who had taken the Club Membership Survey which will help determine the activities and meetings we will have in 2021. At the time of this writing 23 members had participated and we are planning for full everyone to weigh in. Thanks to the following members for their input!

Alexandra Kritchevsky

Brian Krause

Carl Nettleton

David Gugerty

David Jay

Doug Frost

Gary Knight

Glen Honig

Gordon Boerner

Jim Floros

Jim Melvin

Judy Leitner

Justin Frisco

Karina Sousa

Lauren Cook

Michael Boland

Monica Ball

Sally Hazzard

Shaun McArdle

Steve Morris

Susan Day

Vic Bianchini

Chairman of the Day, Steve Morris introduced the program for the day which included his colleagues from the San Diego Food Alliance, Geertje Grootenhuis and Tida Infahsaeng. They shared the organization’s mission which is to cultivate a healthy, sustainable, and just food system in San Diego County. While the topic is vast areas of specific change include:

• Healthy food access
• Urban agriculture
• Wasted Food Prevention & Recovery
• Reducing barriers to farming
• Sustainable local seafood
• And a many more.

It was an eye opener for Club members to realize one of the biggest ways to create a workable food system for all is to focus on waste prevention and recovery. The US is the global leader in food waste as we discard nearly 40 million tons of food each year and we can all contribute to curbing that issue.

A refrigerator magnet was made available to members (below) and you can get yours by contacting the San Diego Food System Alliance.

The Club has three December birthdays and celebrated the following members with cheers and good wishes!

• Sally Hazzard
• Ricardo Sandoval
• Judy Leitner

In case you have not heard we have a competition going on to see which member has the best noon meeting attendance for the year so far. So far, we have FOUR members with perfect attendance. Congrats to Doug Frost, Judy Leitner, Shaun McArdle, and Steve Morris – may the best member reign victorious.

You can see what happens by joining us on Tuesday, December 15 for our LAST noon meeting of 2020!