Volunteering is the soul of the Exchange Club's principles and this award recognizes dedicated volunteers who give endless hours of their time and talents toward making our community a better place to live.

With the help of the Herald Whig, who has graciously run articles asking for nominations for a number of years now, we ask the community to nominate a deserving person for the award. All of the nominating letters are reviewed by our Golden Deeds Award committee, who chooses the most deserving nominee each year. The nominating letters are then placed in the "Book of Golden Deeds" and presented to our recipient.

Up until 1990, the Golden Deeds banquet was a large gathering on a Sunday evening with club members and their spouses or girlfriends (but not both) and all of our past recipients invited to attend. As the number of attendees began to dwindle for an evening banquet, though, the board made the decision in 1991 to make the banquet part of our Friday noon programs. Since then, we've invited all of our past recipients to join us for a Friday noon meal.

This past Saturday, another National Project - this one started by the Exchange Club of Galesburg - was carried on by the Club. Give-a-kid-a-flag-to-wave was a huge success with the great weather and huge turnout for the Dogwood parade. Nearly 7,000 flags were distributed to "kids of all ages" along the parade route. With the help of a number of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts from the Mississippi Valley Council, we led off the parade with our big American Flag, with Dick Wentura carrying the supply of flags in the back of his classic pickup truck. This year we were joined by the Gus Macker Man (worn by Mike Llewellyn) and Time Out Teddy (worn by Joel Koch). Both were big hits with the kids in the crowd. Thanks to all of the club members and their families who helped!