West Point Kiwanis Crab Sales Boost Community Efforts

by David Rorick

Crab Carnival is a great event for everyone involved: the community, the thousands of visitors who fill West Point's streets, and the many vendors and civic groups who offer their wares to the assembled crowds. This is especially true for the West Point Kiwanis Club. Each year, Crab Carnival is the prime source of funding for the Club's community projects.

As with all civic groups who participate in Crab Carnival, it takes the full membership of the Kiwanis Club to plan and carry out the beer and crab sales efforts. It's a complex process of securing permits and licenses, purchasing supplies, locating a source of high-quality blue crabs and negotiating a contract with the beer distributor. And that's before the labor-intensive process of setting up and tearing down the sales pavilion, and staffing the sales area. It takes dozens of club members and volunteers.

Crab Carnival coincides with the point in the Kiwanis calendar when the president's gavel passes to a new leader. This year, outgoing president Andy Conklin and incoming president Mary Ann Seward teamed up to lead one of the club's most successful campaigns. This year's sales netted just over $5,000 to support Kiwanis scholarships, community outreach, and assistance to student groups.

None of this would have been possible without each Kiwanis member pitching in. One of the most energetic participants this year was long-time member Harvey Morgan, who also represents West Point in the Virginia General Assembly. As his photo shows, Harvey truly 'rose' to the occasion.