Our story begins in 1971... a group of like-minded citizens gathered in Fallbrook, California, and decided to create the Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook. 

The Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook is one of 19 member clubs in Division 37 of the California--Nevada--Hawaii District of Kiwanis International.   

Kiwanis International is a worldwide service organization of individuals who want to improve their communities.  As a group, these people, called Kiwanians, can achieve what they cannot do alone. 

We, the members of the Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook recognized that fact long ago when our club was chartered.  We joined together then, as we do now, to apply our efforts towards improving our community, the Village of Fallbrook. 

We Kiwanians from Fallbrook, both men and women, attend weekly club meetings for fellowship and for inspiration.  We perform voluntary community service through committees, usually after hours.

Kiwanis is not a social club or political society.  It does not prescribe a way of life for others.  It does, however, act as a forum for diverse ideas.  Three meetings each month we schedule speakers to share their knowledge and ideas with us.  The fourth meeting is set aside for club administration and provides our club officers and directors to keep us abreast of current events. 

Kiwanis performs service beyond the capability of any one individual: assistance to the aging, the needy, and to youth; improvement to communities; and encouragement of international understanding.  We do so by participating in and conducting fund-raising projects within our community and by voluntarily contributing to charitable organizations. 

Kiwanis and our club is a worthy voluntary service organization comprised of individuals who want to become personally involved in making their communities better places in which to live.  Members working together to achieve what individuals cannot do alone and focusing on club projects determined by local needs.

Neither Kiwanis International nor our club is affiliated with any religious or political organization.  We are not a social club, although fellowship and friendships are created through participation in Kiwanis.  We are not a secret society with secret rituals, nor are we a political circle.  When political issues are presented at club meetings, they are presented in a fair, balanced, and impartial manner.

To learn more about Kiwanis and our club, click here to send an e-mail to our Club Secretary.   Or join us for breakfast on Tuesday mornings at 7:00 a.m. at the Fellowship Hall, First Christian Church, 318 West Fig Street, Fallbrook, California.  We begin with a song, the Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag, and a nondenominational invocation followed by a hearty breakfast, camaraderie, and an interesting program.  At 8:00 a.m., when the meeting closes, you'll have an appreciation of what it means to be a Kiwanian in the Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook. 

THE HISTORY OF KIWANIS

Kiwanis was founded in Detroit, Michigan, on January 21, 1915 by Allen Browne as a fraternal club for business and professional men.

The original name was "The Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order Brothers."

The name was soon changed to Kiwanis as an Indian name meaning "To Express One's Self."

The Kiwanis spirit spread to Canada, and to Europe, Asia, and Latin America.  Today, Kiwanis clubs are in more than 80 nations or other governing bodies.

Today, there are nearly 8,700 Kiwanis clubs and a third of a million members worldwide.

IN THE BEGINNING…

“My name is Browne, Allen S. Browne,” says the intense bespectacled man on your doorstep.  “I want to discuss with you the possibilities of organizing a group of business and professional men into a fraternal club, with a sick benefit feature.”  What do you do with him?  If you tell him you’re hot, tired, and not interested, you’ve missed the chance of a lifetime--the chance to become the first Kiwanian.  Joseph G. Prance invited Browne into his shop to discuss his proposal.

Out of that conversation in August 1914, between a professional organizer and a respected but otherwise unremarkable tailor came one of the great service organizations of the world, Kiwanis International.  Together, these two men began recruiting new members.  Browne, as the professional, would receive the $5 membership fee from each man--and keep it for his trouble.  Prance was the first to sign up.

But he was not yet the first Kiwanian, for the name that Browne had chosen for the group was truly the spirit of the times--The Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order Brothers.  Kiwanis it was not.  The growing membership soon fixed that.  They quickly grew tired of belonging to an organization known as BOB for short.  With the helping hand from Detroit’s official historian, an Indian phrase -- "Nun kee-wan-nis" -- was adopted as a name. 

During a club meeting in the first week of January 1915, Kiwanis was approved as the new name for this club, which had attracted nearly 200 members in only six months.  The corporate charter was returned by the state of Michigan, dated January 21.  That date has been the birthday of Kiwanis ever since.  The name translated as “We Trade.”  A more thorough check later revealed that a truer meaning is “We have a good time--we make noise.”

With the founding of the Kiwanis Club of Detroit Number One, Kiwanians discovered that they were having a good time and that they could make a noise in the world.  But not by scratching each other’s backs in business.  They could do it by rendering important community service without thought of personal gain.  Yet trouble loomed.  The founding club of an organization that now embraces more than 333,000 Kiwanians in 8,700 clubs in over 80 nations and geographic areas faltered--and nearly failed--only six months after it had so proudly adopted its new name.  The cause?  Allen S. Browne.  Or, more specifically, club members who did not like Browne or the financial arrangement Kiwanis had with him.

The membership fee--collected and kept by Browne--was up to nearly $10 by mid-July 1915.  And Browne legally “owned” Kiwanis.  During a club meeting, accusations were made against Browne.  They are now known to be untrue.  But a furor developed that left the first Kiwanian watching helplessly as the first Kiwanis club disintegrated before his eyes.  Afterward, Joe Prance wrote, “Everyone started talking at once, all 175 of them.  When the smoke cleared, we had about fifty members left.  Secretary Ottie Robertson and Allen Browne, disgusted, left for Cleveland to organize a Kiwanis club there. 

It was a wise move.  Browne and Robertson started a club in Cleveland that boasted a membership of 135 in ten weeks.  The Cleveland Kiwanis enthusiastically began building other clubs.  And it was in Cleveland that Kiwanis service and its special concern for children took firm root.  The new club started a nursery school for underprivileged children. 

Meanwhile, Detroit President Don Johnston diplomatically pulled his club together.  More important, he eagerly supported a membership drive to bring the club to full strength.  Kiwanis had stumbled during the summer of 1915.  But it did not fall.  And now, with major clubs in Detroit and Cleveland and with others on the way, it was back on its feet--stronger than ever. 

Those first Kiwanians sensed the destiny of their small but vigorous organization.  And they knew what to do when a spark ignites a fire.  They fanned the flames by calling the first Kiwanis convention in Cleveland for May 18 and 19, 1916.  The delegates elected officers and adopted a constitution, and returned home believing, as the first Secretary, Albert Dodge, would declare at the Detroit convention a year later, “We belong to a wonderful organization.”

The delegates gathered in Detroit in 1917 represented more than seventy clubs and more than 5,700 Kiwanians in two nations.  Two nations?  That’s right.  The club that made Kiwanis international--Hamilton, Ontario--was organized on November 1, 1916.

During the next two years, Kiwanis marched on.  The district concept came into being, the first issue of Kiwanis magazine appeared (known then as The Kiwanis Hornet), and Kiwanis grew.  At the 1918 convention in Providence, Rhode Island, Secretary Albert was pleased to report that eighty-three Kiwanis clubs existed--with 10,000 members.

Yet within the organization, a fire still smoldered.  When Allen Browne’s contract was brought up for discussion in Providence, the fire flared.  Many Kiwanians were uneasy--even angry-- that their organization was owned for profit.  Finally, after much fervent discussion, the contract was calmly reviewed, revised, and approved--for one year only. 

Then, during the May 21 morning session of the 1919 convention in Birmingham, Alabama, the “Browne matter” was settled for all time.  A new contract for Allen Browne came up for review.  Its terms were simple and electrifying:  Kiwanis could buy their organization from Allen Browne for $17,500--provided they did it within twenty-four hours.  The delegates were thunderstruck--and immensely pleased.  The Kiwanis Club of Baltimore put up the first $500.  The rest was raised in an hour.  It was an historic moment.  Kiwanis was free to chart its own future in growth and service, restrained only by the imagination and energy of its members.

During the following year, something important crystallized for Kiwanis.  Something that inspired Roe Fulkerson, the gifted editor of Kiwanis magazine, to propose two simple words -- "We Build" -- as the Kiwanis motto.  It was the coining of that motto--after five years of painful and exhilarating growth--that put Kiwanis into its stride.  In their hearts, Kiwanians had always known why they were Kiwanians.  Roe Fulkerson put it into words.  Those two words, “We Build,” became the guiding force and inspiration for the important work of Kiwanis.  They promised then--as they do now--that for Kiwanis, the best is yet to be.

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Contact: Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook, P.O. Box 54, Fallbrook, California 92088 or click

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Copyright © 2002 Kiwanis International, Cal-Nev-Ha District, Division 37, and Kiwanis Club of Fallbrook, California.

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