My Nonprofit Reviews

Hi! To give you the background info...June 14, 2013 Denny had 3 cardiac arrests, open heart surgery with 26 pints of blood. He had liver failure, kidney failure, respiratory failure, pneumonia, was on life support for more than 16 days, had to have stomach surgery because of all the blood he was given, his major organs were very fragile and he developed a tear in the stomach and had to have a portion of it removed. He was in ICU for 40 days and had more than 60 units of blood products. The doctors and nurses in the ICU dubbed him “The Miracle Man.” When he walked out of the hospital he began to wonder why God kept him on this earth.

We are both retirees from the Camdenton School District and over 65% of the kids in the lake area live in poverty! Many people don’t realize this. This is a situation that needs a lot of attention! We winter at South Padre Island, Texas and at a beachfront restaurant; they had the “International Idiots Club” that helped island types of charities: turtle rescue/dolphin hospital. We thought…this concept should work here at the lake, but to help all these kids that live in poverty!

We work through five different school districts; Climax Springs, Macks Creek, Eldon, Camdenton and School of the Osage. We do not work directly with parents or children, to maintain confidentiality of the child. Counselors, Social Workers or Nurses from the schools (or personnel from other social agencies, such as Domestic Violence Center, Developmental Disabilities Resources, DFS, Helping Hands Homeless Shelter, etc.) will e-mail a request to the Idiots Club and those requests are sent to Volunteers that will buy the items requested with the Idiots Club credit card, remove all tags, then deliver to the requestor, who will give the items to the child. These professionals know the families and the children and what is truly needed.

We do our fundraising at various lakefront restaurants during the summer months. We sell our annual memberships for $5.00, t-shirts, hats, koozies and lanyards and that's how we raise our money and help educate the people that come to the area for a visit or live here. First, we wanted a name that was an attention getter to help raise funds. During our 2018 season our charity had 1,359 members sign up—our annual membership is $5.00. Everyone has a great sense of humor and wants to enjoy life, not take themselves too seriously, but more importantly, they want to help the children living in poverty in the Lake area. Second, we are the Jesters of Goodwill (our logo is jesters) helping children in-need. The combination of the name and our fundraising plan is apparently working, because in the short 4 1/2 years since we started this charity, we have been able to provide more than 15,000 child assists!

We're a group of people (Jesters of Goodwill) helping kids and having fun doing it. Our 501(c)3 charity is all volunteer, so all the proceeds go to the children in-need. Since we started this charity on June 14, 2014 (this date wasn’t planned, but we just happened to get everything in order to start exactly 1 year from the date Denny had 3 cardiac arrests…) we have been meeting needs as identified by school counselors, nurses and social workers and other professionals in the Social Service agencies (we don’t work directly with parents or children to maintain confidentiality of a child) and we have spent more than $299,510.00. And because of donations and discounts from our business partners, the retail value of our items to kids is more than $490,916.00! We provide everything from shoes to car transmissions, cheerleading fees to band fees, tires to bed bug eradication and psychological therapy to heaters for a cold bedroom and scholarships for youth living in poverty to take Dual-Credit courses to help them gain the education they need to break the cycle of poverty. Since Spring, 2017, the Jesters of Goodwill has provided $35,740.50 to give 118 students the opportunity to take 169 classes and receive 501 College credits! We thought if we could raise $4,000-$5,000 each year for kids living in poverty that would be amazing…we just can’t believe all the blessings on this charity! We wanted to do something to help the kids in the community, but after everything we had been through, we also wanted to have fun! Nothing would be possible if it weren’t for our amazing members, donors and volunteers that have big hearts.

We use the name in a goodwill manner of fun and to get attention!!! And many people have told us we are marketing geniuses...not sure we'd go that far, but people love it and love what they are able to be a part of!!! It is an amazing gift!

Denny & Danna Hiner
Co-Founders

Facebook: Lake of the Ozarks Idiots Club
Website: www.LakeoftheOzarksIdiotsClub.org
E-Mail: LOTOIdiotsClub@gmail.com
Address: 694 Nautica Road, Camdenton MO 65020