Not your grandpa’s Kiwanis club

By Morgan M. Hurley, editor

Times, they are a-changin’.

As the headline states, the two-year-old Kiwanis Hillcrest All-Inclusive is not your grandfather’s club; it is a group that accepts literally everyone, and that has definitely not always been the case. 

Founded in 1915 by two men in Detroit, Michigan, Kiwanis’ membership grew to more than 100,000 in just over 10 years and was – you guessed it – all-white males. Membership outside of the US and Canada wasn’t approved until 1962, and it wasn’t until 1987 that women were accepted into the membership.

While there is no specific religious affiliation with Kiwanis, until recently, someone from the LGBTQ community being openly and officially included in the membership was unheard of, which still seems counter to the reason Kiwanis exists in the first place when you consider that their “defining statement” (according to Wikipedia) is “Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world, one child and one community at a time.”

Their focus on children attempts to instill a service mindset at a young age; K-Kids (elementary school), Builder’s Club (middle school), Key Club (high school) and Circle K (college) are all Kiwanis-related groups that strive to develop kids into lifelong Kiwanis members as adults.

Current president of the Hillcrest All-Inclusive group, Benny Cartwright, was one of those kids, but he eventually learned it didn’t include him as an openly gay young man.

A San Diego native, his Kiwanis link was the Grantville-Allied Gardens club near his home. He spent three years in Builder’s Club, and said he “naturally” joined Key Club at Patrick Henry High School, where he was club president two years in a row.

They did things such as trash cleanups (that’s a familiar past time of his still today), planting trees at Lake Murray, reading to elementary school kids, selling concessions at sports games, working the annual Christmas tree lot in Allied Gardens, and attending Key Club conventions across the state.

“We also had a fantastic faculty advisor who I became really close to and was very supportive of me through high school,” Cartwright said. “It really gave me a great background in leading meetings and just being a leader. I don’t think I give enough credit to that experience and its impact on my leadership development.”

During these years, he also often attended the weekly 7 am breakfast meetings of the adult Kiwanis club, rubbing elbows with the adults, and he still remembers the “old school” traditions of the club (pledge of allegiance, singing songs from a Kiwanis songbook at the beginning of the meeting, members being fined for not shaking the hand of a “secret greeter,” etc.). Women’s membership had been approved for five years when Cartwright first got involved, but he remembers they weren’t treated well by the male membership.

“By the time I got to college at SDSU, I naturally joined the Circle K Club and because SDSU is in the same general area as my junior high and high school, [my home Kiwanis Club] also sponsored the Circle K, so it was a very natural, comfortable transition.” he recalled.

“But I had just recently come out as gay and became really active in the LGBT community at SDSU – which really changed the trajectory of my life and much of that work is the reason why I am where I am today.

Kiwanis didn’t feel like a fit anymore. I hadn’t ever been openly gay to all the Kiwanians who had seen me grow up through junior high and high school and I honestly didn’t know how they would react to that. As I got more and more visibly involved with LGBT activism, I no longer felt comfortable and dropped out of Circle K. I had no reason to believe either way that the Kiwanians of that time would not have accepted me as a gay young man, but it was a very different time, and I just did not know.”

We all know what Cartwright has been doing since, but fast forward to 2020 in the middle of the pandemic.

Cartwright said his first friend in Builder’s Club, John Crawford (who has since become a lifelong Kiwanis member) had tried for years to get him back involved as an adult, but Cartwright’s efforts were obviously focused elsewhere. Then a new classification of Kiwanis had been established in an attempt to boost its declining membership: All-Inclusive.

Crawford, as a Lt Governor in charge of the region (division 21), wanted to create an All-Inclusive group and felt Cartwright and Hillcrest were sure bets. Zoom calls took place, and other members of the LGBTQ community who had Kiwanis backgrounds began to join the calls; Gina Roberts, former president of Log Cabin Republicans, and Neill Kovrig, who was very involved in America’s Finest City Softball League and other organizations.

After much outreach and planning, they got enough people to form a club and were chartered on June 14, 2021, with Kovrig as president.

Since their launch, they’ve been meeting every other Thursday night (no 7 am breakfasts for this club!) in the back room at Uptown Tavern and have grown from 13 members to 25. They are the fourth largest in the district with regards to growth.

During their twice monthly meetings they take care of business, share Kiwanis and community news, listen to the guest speaker, raise a little money with fun, interactive ways to keep members involved, plan future service opportunities, and network. Outside of the meetings, they’ve  taken on various projects, including putting up the US flags throughout the neighborhood on official holidays (something the recently disbanded Lions Club had always done), and helping with already established projects (Boo Bash, children’s area at CityFest, Nightmare on Normal Street, etc.). Cartwright said they hope to launch some of their own annual events soon.

Something the greater Kiwanis groups are known for is an annual pancake breakfast, which raises money for their causes. Cartwright said he is considering a twist on that theme that would be the perfect fit with the Hillcrest club: a drag pancake breakfast with mimosas!

One thing is for sure, however, Kiwanis Hillcrest All-Inclusive has committed to making trans kids their focus. Kiwanis has a saying, “kids need Kiwanis,” and the Hillcrest All-Inclusive group has adopted the hashtag, #transkidsneedKiwanis.

Kovrig, who led the group for the first two years as president, was previously affiliated with Kiwanis in Rancho Bernardo and got connected through his mother’s involvement. He now has two roles, “past-president” of the Hillcrest group and he was also recently voted Lt. Governor of the 21st division of the California-Nevada-Hawaii district of clubs, which oversees Hillcrest and eight other Kiwanis groups in central San Diego.

During their last meeting, Kovrig turned over the bell and gavel to Cartwright, telling attendees “You’re not getting rid of me.” He plans to continue attending the bi-weekly meetings when he can. 

They are looking for more members, so if you are wanting an opportunity to give back to your community, this could be it.

“I want everyone who wants to get involved to experience this. If it turns out Kiwanis isn’t right for them, we’ll help them find something else – we’re connected to everyone!” Cartwright said. “We really are the happening club in the neighborhood right now and I invite anyone and everyone to check it out.”

To learn more, start following them on Instagram at @kiwanisLGBTQ and pop into their next meeting, which will be Thursday, Oct, 12, 6:30 pm at Uptown Tavern in Hillcrest.

—Morgan M. Hurley is the editor-in-chief of this newspaper. You can reach her at editor@lgbtqsd.news.

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