Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
The Manhattan Optimist Club on the GMCF Community Hour Episode - 189
Heather Peterson, Jim Franke, and Greg McCune from the Manhattan Optimist Club share their initiatives to uplift the community's youth through various fundraisers and programs. Driven by a shared mission, the club highlights its upcoming events and its vital role in fostering a positive atmosphere.
• Discussing the Optimist Club's efforts to engage the community
• Highlights of their annual fundraising events, including the spaghetti dinner
• Emphasis on empowering local youth through various programs and activities
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. I am great today. Good to have you on. Thank you, this is your first time in on a show. Yeah, I've been to a few Optimist meetings. I was a member a long time ago. Can we get you back? That's a pretty tough deal. No offense, I'm kind of maxed out right now, but tell me a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my wife and I retired here in 2019. I had a 42-year career in journalism, graduated from K-State in 19. I had a 42 year career in journalism, graduated from K-State in journalism. My wife is an accountant and she graduated from K-State. So, yeah, we decided that we wanted to come back and retire in a college town. What bureau did you work at? For AP, I worked for AP and Reuters 29 years for Reuters and I worked in four different countries for them, oh my. And then, with AP, I worked in their Chicago office as an editor.
Speaker 1:You're a whole different interview altogether in your history, aren't you? Jim Franke is a member of the board and no stranger to this program, because it seems like we get you in a couple of times every year.
Speaker 4:Year we talk about different things that the optimists are involved in, including the spaghetti dinner and the tree lot yeah, we have three large major fundraisers the tree lot sale, sale of christmas trees, the chili crawl which is in october usually, and then the dinner which just happens to be coming up for the 15th time on the 29th of March.
Speaker 1:We'll get to that here in a little bit, all right, because we got to introduce Heather first. Heather's also on the board of the Optimist Heather Peterson. Good morning.
Speaker 3:Good morning. Thanks for having us. Glad to have you back. It's good to be back.
Speaker 1:You've been involved in the Optimist quite a while.
Speaker 3:A while.
Speaker 1:Most of your professional life probably.
Speaker 3:Close. Yeah, pretty close.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:Yes, pretty close.
Speaker 1:What do you like about being in the Optimist Club?
Speaker 3:You know it is a really great organization that does a lot of really great things for the youth in our area. All of the fundraisers that we do, all of the programs that we support, it's directly impacting youth in this area and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:And you and Randy have a little bit of a vested interest with a couple of your own.
Speaker 3:We do, we do. They are in the area and doing the things and you know, hopefully they could be a student of the month or a youth of the month at some point in time in their future.
Speaker 1:Let's talk with Greg just a little bit. Greg, were you involved in Optimus before you moved to Manhattan?
Speaker 2:With Greg just a little bit. Greg, were you involved in Optimist before you moved to Manhattan? No, Sorry to say, I was pretty focused on my career.
Speaker 1:Well, you missed out so much, didn't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I didn't really do a lot of volunteer work except with my church. But when we moved here I met Larry Fox, who you probably know from the foundation, and he said you might come along to the Optimist Club we have breakfast meetings and so I came and I'm still here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, good for you. What do you like about it?
Speaker 2:Well, what Heather says and just the things that we do are trying to make a positive impact in the community. You know, I think, dave, there's so much negativity out there on social media, in our society and we're kind of like a place you can go for positivity and optimism and helping kids. Our mission is very simple lift up kids, and I just love that you know you're talking about social media.
Speaker 1:You know there is, and I don't think that's necessarily balanced, but you talked about negativity. There are a lot of good things in social media, but we, I think we digest really the negative stuff because it just sticks with us.
Speaker 2:But it's great to have that interpersonal integration of personalities and people and talents that can do a lot of cool things for the kids with disabled kids at Manhattan High School going and talking to them, having them come to our meetings and how excited and their families too excited they are to receive an award. So that gets to what I was saying about lifting up kids, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jim, one of the things that we talked about just briefly. You've got three annual fundraisers and one of them's coming up here in about four weeks or so. It's your spaghetti feed. I've been to this a number of times and it's always good and it's always fun. Give us some details on your spaghetti fee.
Speaker 4:Again, it's going to be the 29th Saturday, the 29th of March. It's going to be out at Potterfall in Seco Park from 5 to 8 in the evening. Tickets will be available at the door, unless you know an optimist that you can reach out to. Okay, $8 for adults and $5, $4, I'm sorry for children under the age of 13. Okay, Okay, and the menu if you're interested in that Spaghetti, of course Ooh, you had me there Both meat and meatless sauce. The meat sauce is overwhelmingly more popular, but we do have the meatless. Get a salad, some bread, something to drink and then you get a dessert and it's a good time. It's sort of the first thing that happens for a lot of people in the spring. It's starting to warm up, People are starting to come out of hiding. If I could shout out to some of the sponsors that we use for this.
Speaker 4:Our sponsors help us out with food and ingredients for what we cook. First of all, the Outdoor Bank here in Manhattan. They provide what's the most expensive item on our shopping list, which is hamburger, and then we get some pasta and sauce from the Barilla folks Actually, we get that up in Des Moines and then the K-State Bakery Science Club. One of our members was an advisor for them and we made this connection with them and we helped them bake it, but they come up with like 75 loaves of bread.
Speaker 1:That's no, no fishes, just bread.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right, I always do that, and then what else?
Speaker 1:It's almost Lent.
Speaker 4:And then desserts. The Manhattan Optimist Fast Pitch Association, fast Pitch Softball Association. They put up half the desserts and they also help us with our ticket sales and that's a heck of a contribution that allows us to keep the prices as low as we do.
Speaker 1:How many people come through? Typically Five to 600. That's a lot of spaghetti. That's a lot of spaghetti A lot of bread, a lot of salad a lot of drink a lot of desserts?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we never use it all, but we've gotten better over the years. The first time we did it, we didn't know what we were doing, so we gave what was left over to a local organization and they brought a minivan down and we stuffed every square inch of the minivan with what we had left. But now we're we're actually much better at it.
Speaker 1:Good, all right. March 29th, that's the day. So let's talk a bit about some other things. And and one of the big challenges, heather, is, you know, for every civic organization is not just getting new members but retaining members. And I know that you know, the Optimist Club originally was two organizations and they merged several years ago, which I think was a brilliant move, and you know, and that's that probably was a sustainability initiative, but you're always in need of new members we are.
Speaker 3:Like you said. I think any civic organization, non-profit organization struggles with getting people involved, and I think times have just changed, for you know, one reason or another, the organization was one. At one point in time it split into two those who liked to get up in the morning and those who you didn't want to be around in the morning Myself of one of those, without six or eight cups of coffee in me and we've reemerged to join forces so that we could do all of these wonderful programs that we do, so we offer. I think that is one of the best things about the Optimist Club is there's lots of opportunities for engagement and you really get to pick what aligns with your schedule, what aligns with your passions, what aligns with your values. You know, what do you, what, what interests you and what do you want to be involved in that?
Speaker 3:I don't know a lot about a lot of other organizations, but I feel like there's so many requirements or all of this or all of that, and we really have a variety of things. You can go ref a tea ball, you can help cook spaghetti, you can show up in the morning, you can show up at noon, you can be a part of the chili crawl, be a part of any of these things that we do, any of the other programs that we do for the kids. So there's just a really a wide variety of things that we do, any of the other programs that we do for the kids. So there's just a really a wide variety of things that you can be involved in and find your passion so that you want to be involved with it.
Speaker 1:And all these fundraisers go into different types of programs and, greg, we're going to turn to you for some of the programs and I know that one of the things that you have been involved in for a really, really long time is baseball, softball, t-ball and you got your own ball, diamond Optimus Park just off Amherst, and that's just a lot of fun and this is probably a time where a lot of people are thinking about getting their kids involved in that.
Speaker 2:Yes, registration is going to be opening soon with Parks on Rackin'. The City is going to be opening soon with Parks and Rec in the city. We're very proud of the fact that we in the last two years have given substantial financial support to the T-Ball program with Parks and Rec and that's enabled Parks and Rec to offer this program for free for five and six year olds. So it's absolutely free. If parents have kids who you know are maybe a little bit shy about getting involved in sports and whatever, there's no downside here. Just sign up and, yes, we have the games at our park. A lot of people in town don't know that we have our own Optimist Park. It's down there by Little Apple Toyota behind that development. We've had it for many years. We have five ball fields there now and we host more than a dozen softball teams there who do their practicing and stuff, softball teams there who do their practicing and stuff. So it's a busy place, even more than the summer, you know the spring and fall as well.
Speaker 1:And it's a lot of fun. Do you have to provide the manpower for much of those activities, or is that something that the city gets involved in?
Speaker 2:No, we're completely independent from the city in that respect. Now for T-Bball, as Heather mentioned. You know you can, we provide the umpires and we do the maintenance of the fields and that sort of thing. And I got to say being a T-ball umpire is really fun.
Speaker 1:I think being a T-ball attendant is a lot of fun. I mean, it's, it's, it's it's great. Comedy attendant is a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:I mean it's it's, it's, it's great comedy. Yeah, the first time I was an umpire um a kid hit the ball and went to third base you know like and it, and everybody was laughing it's, it's, there's, no, there's no pressure there. One of the fun things it's.
Speaker 1:It's it's neat to have fun when you're doing things for kids. Jim, let's talk a bit about some of the other programs that you do. You know we addressed, you know some of the fundraisers, but you know you do obviously the T-Ball program, but you guys are involved in a lot of other things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we well Heather's involved with the. That try it. What's it called?
Speaker 3:Just Try it.
Speaker 4:Just Try it, which is, you want to just go ahead and build on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so just try it. Our involvement we provide the nutrition station. You know a lot of that triathlon. We also do a lawnmower clinic. So those youth that are interested in having their own lawn mowing business over the summer, we take them in, teach them how not to hurt themselves and how to run a business in an afternoon.
Speaker 4:And that's coming up in a week or so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a great again youth program. There we're a big part of the early expressions art fair that just completed. We do a student of the month and a youth of the month, so we're recognizing really at an individual level, local elementary kids and then high school students. For the high school kids there's a scholarship opportunity there at the end and it really is rewarding to go to those meetings and hear what those kids have done. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it because it really is amazing to see the impact that our organization has on these kids and in turn I get a ton out of hearing how amazing these kids really are and it's just it's really fantastic to see Hoopahler and shoot. Thank you, yep, we just completed Hoopahler and shoot over the fall.
Speaker 2:And do you want to mention your daughter?
Speaker 3:My daughter was lucky enough that she got to the finals so it was pretty, pretty stoked about that to be involved. I was never her judge, just to put that out there, so uh there's not a whole lot of judging you know, make sure they don't cross the line. And they made the bucket and all of that.
Speaker 1:I was, it was never me, so I made, I made, made sure of that, but uh you know, when I was announcing for K-State, that was always a fun thing to be able to do when you get the finals there with both both boys and girls and you know, and and hearing a lot of classmates and friends and family just cheering each one of them on, and that was always special.
Speaker 3:It really is. And again, that's another thing that touches every fifth grader in the area. They all, every fifth grader every year, gets an opportunity to be a part of that program and what you don't see is when we go to every school during gym class and we have them, that same support is there, for you know their classmates are cheering them on and it's just. It's so great. It's so great to see Great.
Speaker 1:How can people find out more about the Manhattan Optimist Club and and maybe you know investigate being being a guest at one of your meetings and becoming a member.
Speaker 2:Yes, we would love to have people come and join us. So we have a website, manhattanoptimistcom, and you can click join today, which provides more information. One thing I'd like to mention is that we're doing something new this year. We in the past have pretty much relied on word of mouth about our programs and our club, but for the first time, we're going to do an actual marketing campaign. So you should be seeing more on social media radio ads, youtube video about our programs and about us. In the next few weeks. We're going to launch that. We're very excited about it. A little nervous nervous too, because we haven't done this before. But yeah, we would ask people to go to the website, fill out the form. We'll be notified and we'll invite them immediately.
Speaker 1:We may just put in a quick plug for your meeting location. That's the Blue Hills Room in the Blue Hills Shopping Center, just to Tuttle and Kimball, and you have breakfast meetings on the first, third and maybe fifth Wednesdays of the month and then lunch on the second and fourth meetings. Correct, that's always good food there.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 4:Delicious.
Speaker 2:They do a great job, yeah, and if you want to come to one of the morning meetings, over the next couple of months we'll be having the Youth of the Month, which Heather mentioned presenting to different elementary schools in the area.
Speaker 1:Well, appreciate the work that all of you do. Good luck with your spaghetti feed coming up on the 29th, and you've got information about that on the website ManhattanOoptimistcom. Our guests in this segment include Greg McCune, jim Franke and Heather Peterson, all representing the Manhattan Optimist Club, and thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks, for having us, Dave.
Speaker 1:When we come back from the break, Jim Jeanette's going to be joining us. He's with Manhattan Area Technical College and boy he's got some great stories to tell. We'll hear from Jim in just a couple of moments on the GMCF Community Hour and, by the way, you can always find out more about the GMCF's activities at our website, which is mcfksorg.