About the club
Ninety-five years of young Napa, showing up for its kids
The Active 20-30 Club of Napa was founded in 1930, which makes us one of the oldest standing service clubs in Napa County. The idea then is the idea now: the established service clubs were built for established people, and Napa's twenty-somethings wanted a club of their own — one with more energy, less ceremony, and a hard rule that you age out at 39.
That hourglass in our emblem isn't decoration. Membership runs from 20 to 39, period, so the club refreshes itself every generation. The people running our events today are bartenders, nurses, winery folks, contractors, and accountants in their 20s and 30s — the same kind of people who started the thing during the Depression.
We're a chapter of Active 20-30 United States & Canada, an organization born in 1922 from two clubs — the Active Club of Aberdeen, Washington and the 20-30 Club of Sacramento — that merged in 1960. Our motto: “Youth, to be served, must serve.”
The Napa club started as a men's club and integrated in the early 1990s, when the women of the former Napa Active Women's Club joined; membership has been roughly half and half ever since.
We do charity with our sleeves rolled up
Hands-on, not check-writing
Members don't just fund Project Santa — they shop for each kid's gifts, wrap them, and run the party. We stock the lake before the fishing derby ourselves. That's the 'Active' in the name.
Local money stays local
What we raise in Napa is spent on kids in our own community — including the children of the farmworker families who work the vineyards — through our Children's Charitable Fund, which the club has run since the 1990s.
Leadership you can't get at work
Run a fundraiser's budget, negotiate with venues, manage forty volunteers — members get real responsibility fast, and the friendships tend to outlast the membership.
A quick history
1922
The Active Club (Aberdeen, WA) and the 20-30 Club (Sacramento, CA) are founded months apart — young men's answers to the older service clubs.
1930
Napa charters its own club. It has met continuously ever since.
1960
The two parent organizations merge into Active 20-30 International.
1970
Club member George Carl founds a free kids' fishing derby at Lake Hennessey. It still carries his name.
early 1990s
The club goes coed, welcoming the members of the Napa Active Women's Club. Around the same era, the club establishes its Children's Charitable Fund.
2018
After ~30 years of running Napa's big public Easter egg hunt, the club refocuses on children with special needs — building a calmer, invitation-only egg hunt with ParentsCAN.
2021
The first Napa SantaCon hits downtown, and a new flagship fundraiser is born.
Today
Same mission, new generation. Project Santa, the egg hunt, and more — funded by the best parties in town.
Want the longer version — or to fact-check us over a beer? Come to a dinner meeting and ask whoever's been around longest. Here's how to find us.