A local Rotary club hosted a Bingo Bash in February at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. (Photo: Steve Dinnen) By Steve Dinnen The recent Bingo Bash 2026 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds was a roaring success for Rotary Club of Des Moines AM, raising just shy of $130,000. That money won’t have time to catc h its breath in the club’s bank account, as members are already spending it on projects to fight food insecurity, promote mental health and eliminate human trafficking. This is how it’s supposed to work for Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis and other service clubs as they devote their time, talent and money to making their communities better places to live. It’s group philanthropy. Kiwanis, with half a million members worldwide and 16 clubs in the Des Moines area, look after young people. Jan Burch, with the Kiwanis Club of Des Moines, said they raise money to send kids to Y camp. They’ll use proceeds from a recent pickleball tournament to fund a scholarship program. A crowning achievement for a group of area Kiwanis clubs was getting a $1.6 million fund rolling for the Kiwanis Miracle League. Now entering its 19th season, it’s just about time for kids with mental and physical challenges to “batter up!” at the custom-built, accessible baseball diamond near Principal Park. Every game’s a tie, every kid’s a victor, every volunteer’s a champion. (And non-Kiwanians are gladly welcomed.) The West Des Moines Lions Club raises money for scholarships by hosting a document-shredding day. For 75 years, they’ve run the chains at Valley High School home football games. These service clubs have national and global initiatives, as well. Lions combat blindness, as near as Sioux City ($18,000 donated for vision equipment in NICU at a UnityPoint facility), or as far as Kenya and India with its Sight for Kids initiatives ($1.3 billion donated since 1968). Member dues fund these programs. Over the past 15-plus years, Rotary Des Moines AM has developed a relationship with a medical clinic near Kampala, Uganda, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, equipment and other in-kind donations. One of the partnership’s prouder moments arrived in the form of “mama kits,” which include childbirth equipment (towels, cutting tools, etc.) that has dramatically lowered the number of childbirth deaths. “It takes a village,” as the African proverb goes. Or it’s “service above self,” as the Rotarians like to say. Whichever motto you choose to follow, you can sign up for the nearest service club and be a benefactor for a better community, a better world. PEO’s roots in southeast Iowa Iowa Wesleyan University, in Mount Pleasant, was the first institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi River to be co-educational — way back to its founding in 1842. A few decades later, in 1869, seven of its women students formed a fraternal organization to share goals, create traditions and give mutual aid. In particular, the sisterhood set out to promote opportunities and education by and for women. They called it the Philanthropic Educational Organization, more commonly known today as PEO. Its headquarters now is on Grand Avenue, here in Des Moines, where administrators serve half a million members in 54,000 chapters in the United States and Canada. PEO remains true to its original mission to promote education. Members in the clubs, including more than 30 in Greater Des Moines, work on their own or with the national organization to sponsor a revolving loan fund that so far has provided $266 million in loans to students. In 1949, PEO started offering International Peace Scholarships, which have since added up to $52 million. The group actively supports continuing-education programs for women who have had their studies interrupted, and has raised $79 million to support that cause. PEO also financially supports Coffey College, a liberal arts school in Nevada, Missouri. But it’s not all school work and no play. One club in the Des Moines area, for instance, supports a high school girls soccer team, which the seven long-gone students at the now-closed Iowa Wesleyan University surely would have supported. ...read more read less