By Annika Hauer, For the Reporter

Due to a decline in membership, the Kiwanis Club of Renton will be closing its operations in October 2023.

“It feels miserable, to be perfectly honest,” said Jon Pozega, current president of the Kiwanis club.

Elderly members have been retiring and wanting to travel, and young families have been too busy to join, Pozega said. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Renton Kiwanis Club had around 150 members. Today, it has 11.

Fundraising efforts have also not been as successful in the past few years. The club has exhausted all solutions, Pozega said. Also, three members of 50 years have died in the past two years.

As one of the club’s final contributions to the city, it is donating its Kiwanis Bell and gavel to the Renton History Museum. The bell was given to the club by another Seattle Kiwanis club for its founding in 1929.

In the museum, the bell will also have a shadowbox, detailing its mission and other aspects of its impact in Renton.

Also, the club is in discussion with the City of Renton to donate a bench to Kiwanis Park, located on Union Street.

The Kiwanis Club of Renton’s mission statement has changed over time, but at its core, it has always been: “Change the world, one child at a time.” Over its 93 years of existence, the club has donated millions of dollars back into the community, said Pozega.

In the past, the club has hosted Christmas parties for kids who wouldn’t have had them otherwise. Three students from every Renton elementary school got to attend the party, get presents and sing carols.

“That was probably the most rewarding thing that we have done in the community,” Pozega said.

The club also works with Renton Parks and Recreation to clean up spaces. For example, they have painted graffiti over and have worked a lot in downtown Renton.

There was also a Kiwanis clothing bank, which Pozega was president of for 10 years.

“That was another one of those organizations that was extremely viable in the community of Renton,” Pozega said.

The City of Renton and the Renton School District had been allowing the clothing bank to reside in spaces left empty.

“But as their needs changed, we lost our spaces. And so consequently, we had to close the doors,” said Pozega. The clothing bank has been unable to reopen since the pandemic began.

The Kiwanis Club also supports the key clubs at Renton’s high schools. Key clubs at high schools provide volunteering opportunities for students, and are usually one of the biggest clubs at a high school.

“Those are organizations that hopefully take high school students and start them on the path of giving back to their community,” said Pozega. “And watching what those high school kids have done with that is phenomenal.”

“The community is losing some really serious service organizations that have done an awful lot in the community and are no longer able to. It’s kind of a sad commentary, but I guess that’s kind of the way life goes, at times,” said Pozega.

Despite the club’s closing, Pozega and the other remaining Kiwanians will continue volunteering throughout the community.

“It’s going to be a very small group of us that do, but we will still volunteer because we still have the feeling that we need to continue to give back to our communities that have been so good to us,” Pozega said. “Every Kiwanian that I know has a heart to serve. And I think communities need that.”