Culver Kiwanis Club Embraces the Call

Changing the World One Child, One Community at a Time

When Jim Weirick and Jim Boswell began talking about a scholarship program for Culver Community High School students, they decided to dream big! They set the bar high – at $1 million – with the ultimate goal of having a self-funding scholarship program to award more than $40,000 annually for scholarships, something many families in the Culver-Monterey-Leiters Ford area could use.

Weirick and Boswell were members of the Kiwanis Club of Culver. Shortly after the Club formed in 1996, they took up the challenge to start the Culver Alumni and Community Scholarship Fund. It started with a number of generous donations, the leading one from Ralph Winters to honor his wife Barbara’s retirement from the school corporation. Other donations arrived in all shapes and sizes. By 2003, their efforts were so successful that they started an endowment fund at MCCF. Weirick saw MCCF as the perfect vehicle for their Club’s program. From taking large donations to accepting stocks or real estate to handling a $25 per month gift, MCCF can accommodate every donor’s wishes.

MCCF relieved a lot of headaches for the Club too. Contributions are automatically tax deductible and the Foundation handles investment of the endowed fund and all necessary paperwork. 

By 2014, the Club achieved one of their long term goals. Two $2000 renewable scholarships are now awarded each year and one student receives the Barbara Winters Award for Excellence, a $1000 one time scholarship.

Weirick and Boswell firmly believed that the better educated Culver graduates become today, the better the prospects are for the entire community tomorrow. Kiwanis International was founded in 1915 on the ideal of changing the world, one child and one community at a time.