Civitans start club in Warrior

Published 10:41 am Monday, October 15, 2007

By Ashley McCleery

The North Jefferson News



On Wednesday the city of Warrior officially joined cohorts with Civitan International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving individual and community needs with an emphasis on helping those with development disabilities, by chartering a new Civitan club in Warrior.

Following a luncheon at First Baptist Church of Warrior, the Civitan International director of meetings and conventions Sam Hughes initiated the Warrior charter members with a pledge, Civitan lapel pin and certificate.

Builder of Gardendale’s Civitan club Robert Lee said the success of the club in Gardendale led him to build another in Warrior. “We felt they needed to have one here because Warrior’s growing,” Lee said. “They’ve got nearly 30 members. We’re expecting big things out of them, too.”

Before the induction Warrior Mayor Rena Hudson said she was looking forward to what the club would do for the community. “We don’t have specific plans for the organization yet, but we’re fortunate to have an energetic president to get us started.” The president, Jackie Wesson, is actually Hudson’s daughter. “I’m not bias or anything,” Hudson said.

Civitan began on March 17, 1917 when a group of Birmingham businessmen decided to meet weekly to discuss ways they could contribute to society. Choosing a word derived from the Latin word “civitas,” meaning citizenship, the Civitan club was born. More men became involved during World War I, including Dr. Courtney Shropshire, who started Civitan International.

As more and more cities became interested, Shropshire decided to expand to other countries. Now, Civitan International has about 1,500 clubs in more than 20 countries. With its headquarters in Birmingham, Civitan International spans North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Traveling all over the world to establish these clubs, the international president Mike Brown said he was more than happy to expand the club to Warrior. “A new club in a new community gives more people an opportunity to serve,” Brown said. “Each of our clubs develops local projects they support in the community. That combination of strong local service and worldwide service is why Civitan works so well.”

In addition to helping local and worldwide communities, the Civitan clubs also raise money for the Civitan International Research Center located at the University of Alabama campus. With more than 300 scientists, faculty, clinicians and staff dedicated to studying the cause and effects of developmental disabilities, new discoveries are made each day.

Brown said these new discoveries at the research center are tremendous, affecting 20,000 families each year. Just recently, the scientists discovered that the venom from a scorpion could treat brain tumors by paralyzing the cancerous cells to keep them from invading the healthy cells. The center also just installed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that produces a 3-D image movie of the brain in order to study the brain of autistic children. “I’m excited that Civitan is on the cutting edge of this research,” Brown said. “And we’re excited for Warrior to get involved with Civitan.”