BEST CHARITY

The Calle Ocho street festival isn't just sweaty Spandex, lip-synching, hip-swinging, and flag-waving. It's also a multimillion-dollar fundraiser that allows the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana to provide desperately needed services to the neediest residents of the poorest city in the United States. With more than 150 volunteer members and a full-time staff of five, Los Kiwanis are busy year-round: running basketball, soccer, and baseball leagues for inner-city kids; building playgrounds and parks throughout the city; caring and feeding for senior citizens and the homeless; funding a scholarship program that currently puts 48 students through Florida universities. But the list doesn't end there. The Kiwanis Club runs voter-registration drives, plants palms along city streets, and passes out presents to kids at Christmastime and school supplies come September. They send cash-strapped softball teams to championships, urban teens to camp, and drug addicts to treatment. There is hardly a charity in town that has not benefited from Kiwanis largesse, from the Catholic Home for Children and Boystown to the Children's Miracle Network, Capernaum House, Deed Cancer Clinic, and Dade County Public Schools. Chances are if somebody needs help in Miami-Dade County, the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana will figure out a way to lend a hand.