Time to Don Your Running Shoes and Take Part in the Kiwanis Club’s All-Comers Track Meet – Beginning July 6th. Devotion to Democracy Rally Saturday

Let’s be honest, the Kiwanis Club of Bainbridge Island is oftentimes overshadowed by its big brother – the Rotary Club, which is beginning  to  organize for its annual Auction and Rummage Sale being staged on Saturday, July 11, at Woodward Middle School – but Kiwanis members are no less committed to serving the community in myriad ways.

“We like the openness and the track at (the high school),” says John Jay, a long-time Kiwanis member, who was involved in helping to organize the meet for the past dozen years or so. “It’s a huge family event. We get 200 to 400 people (coming out) every Monday.”

Races will begin this year with the “Jogger’s Mile,” coordinated by the Fort Ward Park Run group. The track meet will then be followed by 50, 100 and 100- and 400-meter dashes, a 50- and 100-meter hurdles event, and a 4 x 100-meter relay. “The objective,” adds Nathan Oestreich, chair of the event, “is to try and run to your predictive time, which each runner writes down beforehand.”

“As the season goes by, we tally up the winners and give them a medal,” adds Jay. “The kids love seeing their names in the newspaper.”

This year’s schedule

Former Bainbridge High School cross-country coach Paul Benton, has served as the All Comers Meet race director in the past, handling the mechanics of staging the individual events, with Kiwanis members serving in a support role.

The meet is sponsored by Bainbridge Senior Living, Bainbridge Kids Dentistry, and West Sound Physical Therapy, along with a dozen other smaller sponsors, says Chris Miller, a real estate agent for Windermere and himself a Kiwanian. The sponsorship dollars help “offset the cost of doing the event and allows us to keep it free,” he explains. “We do these events to bring people together, not necessarily for profit.”

“Kiwanis is about kids,” adds the club’s former president Hank Keaton, echoing the international organization’s motto of “Improving the World, One Child, one Community at a Time”.

At the All Comers Track Meet, he says, “you’ll see kids and families and lots of blankets and picnic (dinners) spread out… And (most of) the parents run.”

The meet is truly for all ages. The oldest person to regularly show up was an 84-year-old man from Bremerton, who has gone out of his way to get to the meet. In the past, he has taken the Bremerton ferry to Seattle and then hopped aboard the Bainbridge bound ferry from Seattle, Jay recounts, “and we pick him up and take him to the meet.” He then does the reserve commute to return home. It’s not clear whether he plans to participate this year or not.

Perhaps the most entertaining participants are a bunch of two-year-olds, who run and jump over miniature hurdles. “It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen,” says Miller, sporting a broad smile and laugh.

Then there is the annual appearance of a Bainbridge accountant, who runs along while pushing a stroller with his granddaughter inside accompanied by his own daughter, alongside him. “It’s something people really look forward to,” says Jay of the meet.

Among the 450 Kiwanis Club’s in the Bainbridge outfit’s region, the All-Comers Track Meet has been recognized in year’s past as one of the top 10 “significant events” clubs’ stage throughout the year.

“Jim (Copen) did a superb job of writing up our event,” Jay explains, noting the club’s effort in previously attracting the district’s Lieutenant Governor, who showed up an event last year to honor the Bainbridge group.

Besides the All-Comers Track Meet, the 30-plus member Kiwanis Club – which meets the first Wednesday of every month at 6 p.m. and at 8 a.m. the following Wednesdays of each month at the BARN– the non-profit organization also holds a number of other events during the course of the year.

For more information on Kiwanis visit: Kiwanis Club of Bainbridge Island – Kids Need Kiwanis

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