Some civic insight

I don’t belong to any civic groups, but I’ve eaten lunch (and dinner, and breakfast) with quite a few. My motto is: “Will speak for food.”

And I’m not deluded by the frequency by which I am invited to address these mealtime gatherings. What I have to say, I suspect, is less important than the one word I usually don’t say: No. Many of these requests come with a short window of time attached, and I can always imagine someone on the group’s speaker committee announcing: “Oh, no — I forgot to find a speaker for next Wednesday!” and someone else saying: “How about that guy from the newspaper? He’ll always do it.”

Anyway, all of this interaction has provided me with at least some insight into what these clubs do when they get together, what their priorities are, and their value to the community at large.

For better or worse, most of this activity occurs well below the media radar. Newspapers like ours used to devote considerable space to posed photographs of officer installations, check presentations and the like (“Grip and grin shots,” the photographers called them), but that tradition is now largely extinct. We simply don’t have the space.

Hence, there is a general perception that civic clubs have become about as relevant as brontosauruses, their ranks dwindling each year, their surviving membership graying. From what I’ve seen, that’s not really the case.

It’s true that people are busier today (or believe they are), and often have little time left for interaction with their own families, much less taking on projects for the Kiwanis, Moose or Junior League. Yet there is also growing communal frustration wrapped around a struggling economy and polarized politicians, a nagging sense that community problems aren’t being solved — or even addressed.

Civic organizations can help on a number of levels.

-Unlike government, they have a lot more flexibility to help who they want to help and take on the projects they want to take on. Relieved of the responsibility to try and please everybody, they can concentrate of filling niches and let other groups handle t1he rest.

They are micromanagers, honing in on very specific needs.

-Civic groups provide a structure within which to volunteer. As do churches, of course, but clubs are generally more broad-based in their membership — which means a wider range of community connections.

-They inject an element of fun into their philanthropic work. There is a sort of constructive silliness to some of the club traditions that breaks down the natural reserve of the members, adding to the esprit de corps.

-As I’ve noted before in this space, we Americans like to do good but hate to pay taxes.

Civic groups provide the means to contribute to pet projects directly.

In recent years, the ranks of groups like the Lions and Kiwanis clubs have been increasingly filled with female members. Meanwhile, the first baby boomer retirees are finding themselves with time on their hands. Like Gene Gallagher.

“When people ask me what I’m doing now that I’m retired,” said Gallagher, who worked for Candler Oil Company, “I hand them this card.”

On the back, it listed more than a dozen different organizations to which he now volunteers his time, including the Lions and Exchange clubs.

From the White House down to City Council, government is being forced to face more problems with less money. No wonder so much time is wasted on peripheral issues like gay marriage and steroids in baseball — philosophical sound-bite battles that don’t really involve spending scarce funds — while problems that really affect the average person are ignored.

I wouldn’t even attempt to list all the things civic clubs and organizations have brought to Lynchburg and Central Virginia. Let’s just take the local Kiwanis Club, since it celebrated its 99th birthday this year and recently hosted a district convention. Over the years, Kiwanians have planted cherry trees and refurbished the train exhibit in Riverside Park, worked on creating the Blackwater Creek Natural Area and cleaning up Percival’s Island, supported Camp Monacan (Boy Scouts) and Camp Sacajawea (Girl Scouts), implemented several programs in city schools, sponsored a series of travel lectures and started the popular Teddy Bear Parade.

Similar lists could be trotted out for all the other civic organizations in the area.

Somebody needed to do all these things. And it’s even better that the members of civic clubs always seem to have such a good time doing them.