Optimist Club seeks to form new chapter in the Nevada area

The Optimist Inter-national Organization is a group of civic-minded adults gathering together for community service and fellowship in support of area youth. Membership is open to all who have an interest in helping youth. Dennis Desmond, of Marshall, Mo., is working to bring the Optimists to Nevada.

"We want to help the kids in the area," Desmond said. "We'll look around and see what the need is and try to fill it."

It wouldn't be the first Optimist Club for Nevada, there was one in the area that disbanded in the mid- 1980s, according to former member Terry Pokorny.

"It just sort of fell apart," Pokorny said. "I think there just weren't enough members to keep the charter. People just drifted away or died off and no one replaced them."

Pokorny said that the group sponsored many activities including bicycle safety efforts, helping out other clubs in the area, selling fireworks to raise money, selling hamburgers during Bushwhacker Days and many others.

"We did a lot, we sponsored ball teams and did a lot with bicycle safety," Pokorny said.

Desmond said he would soon be in the area looking for people who had an interest in forming the group.

"I'm in Osage Beach right now but I think I'll be there next week," Desmond said.

Desmond pointed out the local organization would be able to use the resources of the international organization, even to the point of being covered by liability insurance.

"When a club joins the international group there is quite a bit of insurance available to them, $1 million dollars worth," Desmond said.

There are also Junior Optimist programs that are open to youth, and Desmond said an Optimist Club in Stockton is looking at forming a club that was composed of handicapped children.

"There is a club in Stockton that is looking at forming a Junior Optimist Club that I believe isn't centered around the school but is a Junior Optimist Club composed of handicapped kids," Desmond said. "The brothers and sisters may join but it's centered around the handicapped kids."

Poor and needy children aren't the only ones who can benefit from the Optimist's programs, Desmond said. Well-to-do families could use a helping hand on occasion.

"There are a lot of unique opportunities available to the kids of a community," Desmond said. "People think that kids who are poor and stuff like that are the only ones who need help but there are a lot of the other ones, more well-to-do kids, who need things to do because their parents work and never see them."

Desmond said he was a former coach and noted that the natural athletes in a group usually stand out and thrive but the Optimist program helped others to rise as well.

"I'm a former coach and in sports you will see kids that will naturally rise, the cream of the crop, where there are so many other kids that get left out," Desmond said.

"That's where an Optimist Club can come in with some of the other competitions, basketball competitions, do little tournaments or football or flag football or you name it."

Desmond can be reached by telephone at (660)886-5258 or (660) 815-7742.