Next

year, Fayette County Kiwanis will celebrate its

50th year as a civic club in Fayette County.

And

in 2001, the group will celebrate the 50th

anniversary of the Fayette County Fair, the

club's main fund-raiser and one of the biggest

annual activities in the county.

The

club was chartered in 1951 and had its first fair

a year later on the corner of Ga. Highway 85 and

Stonewall Avenue.

Kiwanis

is an international civic organization that

provides millions of dollars worth of community

service annually. The group's current

international goal is eradication of iodine

deficiency disorder worldwide.

IDD

is a little known problem, but it is the number

one cause of mental retardation, according to

Fayette Kiwanis president Wayne Snead. Kiwanis

clubs worldwide are providing funds to put iodine

salt factories in every country in the world,

working with the United Nations Children's Fund.

In

Fayette County, Kiwanis provides about $35,000 a

year for local charitable work, providing

scholarships and aiding other organizations such

as the Youth Protection Home, the Southwest

Christian Hospice, Council on Battered Women, Boy

Scouts, Girl Scouts and the Fayette County High

School band. The group also sponsors clubs in

local schools to mirror the work of Kiwanis: Key

Club (high school), Builders Club (middle school)

and K-Kids (elementary school).

In

1952, the club purchased Kiwanis Fields on

Redwine Road, which was to be the home of the

county fair for 47 years. The group later donated

the property to Fayette County to start its

Recreation Department, but continued to have the

fair there, working around the growing number of

ball fields and facilities.

Looking

ahead, the club also purchased land on Ga.

Highway 54 as a future fair site, but for a

variety of reasons, that site proved unsuitable.

Last

year the Kiwanians sold the Hwy. 54 site and

purchased 62 acres at Goza and Lisbon roads, just

off Hwy. 85, where it hopes to conduct the fair

for decades to come, and to provide a new

facility for large indoor and outdoor events that

will serve the entire community.

As

Kiwanis enters the 21st century, the local club

hopes to increase its charitable work in Fayette

more than 10-fold, using the new facility for its

own fund-raisers and also renting out the

fairgrounds to provide additional income.

If

all goes well, club officials say, the group

could be contributing a half million dollars to

the community within the next few years.

Kiwanis

meets at Melear's barbecue each Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Anyone interested in joining the club can phone

770-719-3530.

But

be ready to spend some time in volunteer work,

warned Snead.

"We

want people who really want to help the

community," he said.

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