Chapter History

During 1965 and early in 1966, the Wyoming Jaycees recruited men from Paris Township to form the South Kent Jaycees.  Our first chapter banquet was held on May 21, 1966, with many local and regional politicians in attendance.  That night our first President, Lew Hebron was elected and the wives of the Jaycees formed the South Kent Jaycee Auxiliary.

One of our first projects was the clearing and construction of Jaycee Park.  On November 1, 1966, the Township Board approved a resolution supporting Jaycee Park.  In early 1967, a vote was taken by our chapter to change our name.  By a very close margin, our name was officially changed to the Kentwood Jaycees.

In July 1968, Kentwood Jaycee Park was officially dedicated and beginning in 1970, the chapter held annual fund-raisers to improve the park’s many facilities.  Today, our chapter still cleans the park each spring and we are presently awaiting news to improve our park for the new millennium.

1972 saw the formation of Songs for Happiness, a joint effort with the Auxiliary, Jaycees and the “1894 Washboard Band” (Comprised of several Waterford Jaycees).  The project involved the band entertaining shut-in residents of local nursing homes.  Songs for Happiness has continued to perform regularly for more than 25 years.

In 1974, the Kentwood Baseball League was formed with the Kentwood Jaycees financial and manual help.  Today, twenty-five years later, the Kentwood Jaycees are one of the three charter sponsors of the league!

Service to the community continued throughout the 1990’s, including Kentwood’s Habitat House, purchasing equipment for the Police Fire, Library and Parks, and erecting the city’s welcome sign at the corner of 28^th Street and Patterson Avenue.  We also moved into our first clubhouse that we rented in a strip mall on 44^th Street

In 2001, we started the Forest of Fear, a haunted forest in Caledonia that helps fund our community service projects throughout the year.

In 2002, we purchased our first clubhouse, an old Pizza Hut building on the southeast corner of 44^th and Kalamazoo.  We are currently working on renovating it to meet our chapter’s needs.  2002 is also the first year of our entrepreneur dinner, which is at the Amway Grand Plaza downtown.  Our keynote speaker is one of the founder’s of Amway’s Quixtar.com e-commerce web site.