As a follow up to an article I read in the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly last month, Kiwanis Club of Standish raised a bit over $1,000 at its boat races on May 14, but at what cost?

As a friend of Kiwanis and a resident of Watchic Lake, I am concerned that the Kiwanis Club has lost a good deal by not heeding the adverse environmental and noise concerns, which were brought to its attention by officers of the Watchic Lake Association.

The Lake Association may not have 100 percent membership of surrounding landowners, but it does have 100 percent of the health and welfare of the lake itself as its mission, its very reason for existence.

A Kiwanis member, now an officer, recently stated that “the Lake Association never did anything for Kiwanis”, so why consider its position at all. The fact, as more long-term and dedicated Club members know, is that the Lake Association and its members, through our Watershed Survey and Project just a few years ago, spent hundreds of man-hours and more than a few thousand dollars from grant monies to reclaim and restore Kiwanis Beach. Retaining walls, major plantings, landscaping, new foot traffic areas, all directed at correcting soil erosion and pollution problems, were contributed not only to Kiwanis, but to benefit all the people who have come to enjoy those facilities over the years. These efforts were made solely to enhance and preserve the quality of the Lake, not only for ourselves, but for all the community and those who will come after us, in the spirit of Stewardship.

Of course the Club is free to raise funds for its programs in any manner that is permissible. Does that mean Members should make such a choice, knowing how adversely it affects their friends and neighbors, and possibly the lake?

Kiwanis has a long and noble history of encouraging and supporting the constructive and community-bettering achievements of young people of our community. And, of course, it takes money to achieve many of the Club’s goals. Surely there is a better way to raise those funds than by importing a noisy, intrusive, potentially harmful activity by a group with no connection whatever to this community, whose sole purpose is to amuse its own members.

I urge Kiwanis to take a closer look at the way this event has affected its relationship with its friends and neighbors, and to decide whether that cost is truly offset by the amount raised by this event.

Judith S. Harris

Standish