The Kiwanis Club of Birmingham is an organization with a mission to move the city forward. The Birmingham chapter was founded in 1917 and is the world’s largest Kiwani club, according to a representative. Each year, members of the club, called “Kiwanians” spend hundreds of hours serving Birmingham’s children and they invest more than a million dollars into the city.
The Birmingham Kiwani Club is credited with spearheading the effort to move Vulcan to the top of Red Mountain, upgrading LED lighting for shows at Vulcan Park and Museum, the Kiwanis Giraffe encounter at the Birmingham Zoo and the Kiwanis Early Learning Center at the McWane Science Center, amongst other projects.
The Kiwanis Club of Birmingham’s service project, Kiwanis Reads, a program promoting preschool literacy, won the Kiwanis International 2025 Signature Project award.
According to the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham, there were 519 projects up for selection. Among the 519 project entries was a free dental and health clinic that delivered care to over 3000 people in Jamaica, and another which provided 50 comfort care kits for families of children in end-of-life care in Australia. However, Kiwanis Reads won.
The Birmingham club was recognized for their win at the Kiwanis International Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Birmingham Club President Andrew Nix and Executive Director Honora Gathings accepted the award and received a grant to continue expanding the program.
The Birmingham Club says the Kiwanis Reads project has brought books to schools and homes of thousands of children over the last four years. Members visit 900 preschoolers in Birmingham twice a year to read to the students and they each give a student one book to build up the students at home library. These books have a Kiwanis bookplate with a QR code the students can scan which leads them to a video of a Kiwanian reading the book out loud, which the club says is an extra tool to help kids in homes where there may not always be an adult available to help read.
This year, the Birmingham Kiwanis Club said that the Kiwanis Reads project received a grant from the Kiwanis Children’s Fund which allowed it to expand into ten new schools, doubling the number of students they are able to work with.
The Kiwanis Club of Birmingham said they also partnered with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office to restart a program titled “Books Not Bullets,” which provides books for police officers to hand out while they’re on patrol.
According to the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham, school officials say that students are growing their vocabulary and reading fluency through the Kiwanis Reads program, and most of all, they’re learning to associate reading with fun.
“Kiwanians believe in strengthening our communities by serving children. It’s truly inspiring to see how 600,000 Kiwanians around the world are creatively using resources to change lives,” says Gathings. “To hear their stories and to see the impact being made even by clubs with only 25 members was inspiring. It’s an honor to be recognized for our work in Birmingham to help develop and inspire a love for reading.
“Our Kiwanians bring so much love and energy — dressing up as Santa or a book character, making the books come alive through character voices, and hanging out to read more books and answer student questions. We cannot wait to use this gift to put more books in the hands of students this fall through Kiwanis Reads and Books Not Bullets. We are eagerly looking forward to getting back into the classroom.”
To learn more about the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham and Kiwanis Reads, you can visit here.
