“The time is now!”

So declared Reverend Samuel Kendricks in his speech at the Far East Kiwanis Club’s Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast, which took place on Jan. 21, 2008 at St. Luke Catholic Church. It was a rousing call, repeated throughout Kendricks’ sermon on rescuing and reviving communities through the faith that inspired Martin Luther King’s dream of restorative work.

But, in some ways, Kendricks was preaching to the choir.

The audience members assembled before him were all, at the very least, connected to Kiwanis International, one of the world’s largest community service organizations. Seated as honored guests for the event were Kiwanis International President Dave Curry, his wife Eva and Norma W. Wilson, President of the Kiwanis Club of Far East of the Capitol District. Scattered throughout the audience were charter members of that Kiwanis chapter, which has been in existence for 25 years. With a goal of serving the children of the world and changing the world one child and one community at a time, the individuals in this room knew a lot about following in King’s footsteps.

“Community service is basically our mission,” explains Sarah McLean, past president of the Far East Kiwanis Club and a Kiwanian since 1995.

In DC, the Far East Club has followed that mission in a variety of ways: providing aid and gifts for the young and the elderly at area hospitals and at Grant Park Nursing Home, sending clothing and Christmas care packages to people in need of them, serving food to homeless men, organizing walk-a-thons, adopting two local schools and lending assistance to Habitat for Humanity projects.

The Far East Kiwanis Club started when its founding member, Garrett Stewart, began working with young people in Northeast DC by playing ball with them. When he learned about Kiwanis International, he decided to form a chapter as a way to network with other professionals and enhance individuals’ service within the community.

“It meets a need to network and to help young folks as well as the elderly in accomplishing some of their goals,” says Erman Clay, a charter member and former president of Far East Kiwanis. Today the club still works mainly with individuals and organizations in Ward 7.

On a broader scale, Kiwanis International, which boasts 8,000 chapters in 96 countries, focuses much of its attention on the world’s youth. The organization, whose name is a derivation of an American Indian word meaning “we trade” or “we share our talents,” began as a business networking group in Detroit in 1915, but quickly changed its priority to community service. Today its efforts concentrate on providing support and opportunity to young people because, according to the organization’s website, “When you give a child a chance to learn, experience, dream, and succeed, great things happen!”

Kiwanis International has stated a goal of growing to one million members by 2015, with a special emphasis on attracting young people to the organization. President Curry reiterated that goal at the Prayer Breakfast, and Clay agrees: “We’re always looking for new members.”

Just as Martin Luther King highlighted the hope of racial reconciliation for children in his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, the Far East Kiwanis Club’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast also honored its commitment to the community’s young people, with performances from the Dor-Montés Day Care and the East of the River Steel Band.

But perhaps most powerful demonstration of the club’s care for community youth came in a prayer for the children, given by Reverend Samuel Wilson, who is on the Board of Directors for Far East Kiwanis. Gathering parents, grandparents and children to the front of the room and instructing them to hold hands, Wilson made his prayer for protection and healing, for wise upbringing and obedience, a physical experience for the children and adults circled together.

At the close of the Prayer Breakfast, attendees again stood and joined hands for the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” For the collection of Kiwanians, standing amidst the crowd in their blue blazers and proud smiles, their efforts to walk hand-in-hand and overcome adversity in their communities and throughout the world have already begun.