Happy Birthday John Kashanski

March 28, 2015 1:00 am • Last Updated: March 28, 2015 1:01 am

By Suzanne Thompson

At least three milestones are being celebrated this Sunday at High Hopes Therapeutic Riding in Old Lyme. It’s technically about three months early for the Old Saybrook, Lyme and Old Lyme Kiwanis Club to celebrate its first birthday, but this is the 100th year of Kiwanis, which has grown from one chapter in Detroit to more than 1,900 community service clubs around the world, with an emphasis on helping children.

Sunday also is the 94th birthday of John Kashanski, long-time Kiwanis Club member in New London and an inspiration to many who have worked and volunteered beside him and his wife, Barbara, in Waterford and East Haddam over the years.

“It was the best thing that happened to me, five years ago, when John got me involved in Kiwanis,” says Lynn Farrell, president of the Old Saybrook, Lyme and Old Lyme group, and immediate past president of the New London Kiwanis, who decided to make the new club’s meet and greet a birthday party for her mentor. “It’s a wonderful service organization. My life changed through giving back.”

Kiwanis was formed by a few Detroit businessmen who saw the benefit of a service club that gave them the opportunity to help the local community, when there was little government involvement in social safety nets, while making business and social connections. Kiwanis survived the Depression, taking on humanitarian and civic projects and expanding to other countries.

Kiwanis International was celebrating its 25th anniversary when a group of business and professional men from New London established the local club. The club’s website describes how "Camp Kiwanis" at Lake Pattagansett in the 1940s gave scores of underprivileged youngsters a healthful summer of learning and fun. One of the camp counselors was Kashanski, an Air Force veteran.

The New London native recounts how he had three job offers after he finished college: the YMCA, Boy Scouts and the BP Learned Settlement House, part of the settlement house movement that sought to improve lower income neighborhoods through social programs and activities. He chose the Learned House, the lowest paying offer, because he’d volunteered there and liked what he saw.

“Our main goal was to keep the kids off of the street,” he says. “I got to play with the kids and get paid for it.”

It was at the Learned House that Kashanski met his future wife, Barbara, a Connecticut College coed from Boston, who volunteered to work with the children. The Kashanskis lived in Waterford for 22 years, where Barbara, a botanist and avid birder, was a teacher and an active volunteer director of the Thames Science School, a trustee of the Eugene O’Neill Theater and president of the local garden club. They had three daughters, including Lynn, who lives in Old Lyme.

Kashanski’s life has been one dedicated to helping youth. Now retired from the Learned House, he’s reached another milestone — 62 years as a Kiwanis member, with perfect attendance at meetings for most, if not all of those years.

“Thanks to Kiwanis, Barbara and I traveled around the world to attend international conferences,” says Kashanski, who served as president of the New London Kiwanis and as a divisional lieutenant governor for New England, which meant participating in multiple local club meetings throughout the region.

When the family moved to East Haddam in 1976, Barbara wrote for The Gazette and got active with High Hopes, where she served as chairman of the board of trustees. She also was active in the local land trust, conservation groups and historical societies. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1987, Barbara passed away in 2009.

Kashanski credits the Kiwanis organization for keeping him involved with helping children and with making life-long friends throughout the region. Some of these friends are traveling from Maine to help him celebrate the multiple milestones and to keep encouraging others to join Kiwanis.

The Old Saybrook, Lyme and Old Lyme Kiwanis Chapter, which meets every Tuesday night at 6 p.m. at The Hideaway in Old Lyme, welcomes adult members 18 years and older. Members are holding a cleanup of Camp Claire in Lyme on Saturday, April 11. Other club projects include working at the Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantry meals service in Old Lyme and clean-up along the South Cove causeway in Old Saybrook. See the club’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/kiwanisclubosolct.

When she’s not gardening in Old Lyme, Suzanne hosts "CT Outdoors," a weekly radio show on WLIS 1420 AM & WMRD 1150 AM, Saturdays from 1 to 1:30 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m., or listen to archived show in the On Demand section of www.wliswmrd.net.