by Laura Garber
Over the past 100 years, the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club has left its mark on nearly everything in the city; from the annual Christmas tree lot and art murals depicting local history, to the Pier Plaza Clock, and the Greenbelt fitness stations, which it funded.
The Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a community party on Saturday, May 9 starting at noon at the Kiwanis Hall, next to Valley Park. Admission is free.
“We’re going over the top,” said Rick Koenig, Lieutenant Governor of Kiwanis District 19 and 26-year member. “The 100th year celebration is our responsibility, and we must acknowledge the thousands of people who came before us in the Hermosa chapter.”
The centennial celebration will include music, catered food, and raffle prizes throughout the afternoon and a chance to win an e-bike with a helmet and safety lessons.
The Kiwanis Club recently sponsored the re-unveiling of an updated centennial mural to mark 100 years of the Kiwanis Club. The downtown Hermosa mural, originally unveiled in 2007, on the City’s 100th birthday, shows the deep roots of Hermosa history.
“The re-unveiling was our 100th birthday, and it just shows the symbiotic relationship that we’ve had for a century now,” said Koenig, a co-organizer of the re-unveiling.
Just within the last decade, the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club has donated over $100 million to local and national charities, scholarships and youth-sponsored programs and logged over 100,000 hours of community service. The club awards more than 40 scholarships annually to local students.
“Just our club in our 1.4 square mile city, it’s not as easy as it used to be, but we’re able to provide funding to over 55 entities, most of them non-profits,” Koenig said. “I don’t think people realize how integrated the Kiwanis is.”
The international Kiwanis motto, “Serving the children of the world,” runs deep in the Hermosa chapter. Beyond scholarships, members support the Builder’s Club at Hermosa Valley School and the Key Club at Mira Costa and Redondo Union high schools, as well as provide clothing and supplies to students at El Camino College.
“It was very important to realize there are other people who need help,” said current club president and Hermosa Beach City councilmember Rob Saemann, who joined Kiwanis Club in 2022. “If you’re in a position to do that, either financially or just being in the right spot. I get great satisfaction from it.”
Saemann dons a red Santa suit at the Christmas tree lot each season, welcoming children for photos in the sleigh he and Koenig built. What begins as a frightening encounter for some ends with them clinging to their new hero.
“By the time the kids get out of the sleigh, they don’t want to leave. They hug you and say, ‘I love you, Santa,’ and ‘I’ll see you next year,’” Saemann said. “When you’ve done that for them, it is so wonderful. I can’t explain it.”
The club was pivotal in renovating a room in the Community Center for Arc South Bay and Easterseals, organizations that provide support services for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After members painted, repaired plumbing and replaced lighting in the facility, they returned the following year to host a Christmas party and were greeted in a way Koenig called a defining Kiwanis moment.
“They got off the bus and were yelling my name, and they tackled me to the ground in a dog pile,” Koenig said. “Wanting to hug me, wanting to share the love that they’ve got in their hearts with me.”
Members of Kiwanis volunteer at the Hermosa Beach St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Fiesta Hermosa, aided in the renovation of the Hermosa Beach Historical Museum and organize the annual Sister City Student Exchange Picnic, bringing students from Loreto, Mexico to Hermosa Beach.
The Sister City Student Exchange program was born from an idea by the late Joe Diaz, a former Kiwanis president and 50-year member who is among the most respected figures in Hermosa Beach history. While on a family trip to Loreto, Mexico in 1973, Diaz watched his granddaughter Monica Frey playing with local children, language no barrier between them. He returned to Hermosa and pitched the student exchange to the school district and city council, launching the program in 1974.
“The student exchange program was started because of the love of a grandfather for his granddaughter,” said Frey. “It blossomed into something way beyond me.”
Diaz was also central to Kiwanis’ work in Loreto directly, helping to coordinate the donation of the town’s first ambulance and first school bus, both of which he and his wife Marie drove across the border themselves.
“We are a real sister organization,” Koenig said of the Loreto relationship. “We’ve held our student exchange picnic since the very first one, which is about 50 years now.”
The Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club was founded in 1926, when the city itself was just 19 years old. The club remodeled a city owned building on Valley Drive in 1957. The hall, now owned by the Kiwanis Club, remains a hub of the club’s operations. It is used for weekly Wednesday lunches and is rented out to the community for events, quinceañeras and memorials.
Koenig, who has spent the last several months digging through club archives, found a newspaper clipping documenting the club purchasing 500 cartons of cigarettes to send to American soldiers during World War II. “Something tells me that wouldn’t work out too well today,” Koenig laughed. “But back then, it was, ‘Thank you, Kiwanis!’”
The hall’s boardroom is lined with photographs of club meetings from 1927 onward. “You look at all those faces over more than a century,” said Saemann, “and many of those members went on to become mayors and councilmembers for Hermosa Beach. That history and tradition, that’s something special.”
Until 1987, Kiwanis was a men-only organization. Wives formed a women’s auxiliary group known as “Kiwaniannes” or Kiwanis wives. By 1987, Kiwanis Club welcomed women to the service organization creating more community advocates that defined Hermosa Beach. One member, Cathy McCurdy, who passed away in December 2025, spent nearly three decades as the advisor for the youth Builder’s Club.
Like many service organizations, Kiwanis has faced declining membership in recent decades. Koenig attributes the trend to competing obligations and an ever-expanding list of community groups. The Hermosa Beach chapter currently has 32 members.
“Service clubs were founded when families had one car and one source of income, and every town had a club,” Koenig said.
Both Koenig and Saemann say they are seeing signs of new life. Several new members have been installed in recent months, and the club is actively recruiting.
“It’s like going to a pet store,” Koenig said. “The puppy picks you. I think all of us are wired to need a sense of community. You know when you’re home.”
Frey thinks about what her grandfather, Joe Diaz, might say about the lasting legacy of the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club.
“I think that he would be proud of how he, as well as others, set the gold standards for the legacy to continue,” Frey said. “It’s important to be involved. In whatever form that comes by thinking outside the box, not limiting yourself and to embrace the humanity of being of service.”
Saemann, who will address the next century in his remarks at the May 9 celebration, is optimistic. “I picture us in 100 years still being here, celebrating our 200th birthday,” he said. “Whatever the future holds. We could have a Kiwanis club on Mars by then.”
The May 9 centennial celebration is open to all. The Kiwanis Hall is located at 2515 Valley Drive, Hermosa Beach. ER
