This article contains several service spotlights.
Oceanside Key ClubSenior Citizen Dance
Date: February 5th, 2010
Oceanside Key Club fortunately was able to schedule a senior citizen dance February 12, 2010 at the Oceanside High School cafeteria. Each member of key club cooked a dish or brought in cups, plates, drinks, napkins, snacks, decorations and more. We had a long table full of hot food, drinks, and delicious deserts. As more and more senior citizens arrived more and more events took place. We played bingo and interacted with all of our elderly citizens of Oceanside. We had a dance floor where the members were dancing with the seniors to old tunes. We had raffles and gave out coupons and gifts. Donations for the event came from places including McDonalds, Bath and Body Works, Pizziola, Gino’s, Steinberg’s Bakery, and more, too many to list! Several of our dedicated key club members worked endlessly from going to all the senior homes, churches, recreational centers, making fliers, and spreading the word. After the months of planning and organization we had an incredible and successful turn out which lead us to be able to raise a substantial amount of money to donate to the American Cancer Society while we created a memorable evening for the Oceanside community. Hopefully next year the members of Key Club are still as fortunate to run such an amazing event.
Oceanside Key Club
Burger King Night
Date: December 18th, 2009
The Key Club of Oceanside High School New York had its first Burger King Night ever. The money raised was for the American Cancer Society and towards Key Club Convention.
Our first step towards this event was putting up flyers around in local stores. Then we called our local Burger King to allow us to have this event where we bring as many customers to the restaurant as possible. In return, we get a percentage of the profits.
What help our club is that our school’s honor society students are required to have a certain number of community service hours. Also, we emphasized that it was a family thing and that you could bring your parents, grandparents, siblings, etc. This is the best way to bring as many customers as possible. Remember promoting this event is the most important part for it to be successful. But this event is still new to us so if anyone has any suggestions please do tell. In the end we had a lot of fun having a fattening dinner with friends while being able to donate $100 to American cancer society. This was such a fun event and we plan on doing it again for next year.
Michelle Llanos
Bowling For Miracles
The Bowling For Miracles is an annual event which is always a pleasure
to participate in. This year, the Westmoreland Key Club was able to form
7 bolwing teams to participate in the event. While there, everyone
played 3 games of bowling granted free of charge in light of the money
people were able to raise for the Children's Miracle Network. Everyone
had a blast bowling whether they were good or bad, eating pizza, and
sending in requests for songs to play over the radio. It was a
successful event raising thousands of dollars and students are looking
forward to engaging in the event again in future years to come.
-Meagan Vanden Bosch
Westmoreland High School Vice President
NAACP Breakfast
On January 18, 2010, the Westmoreland Key Club helped serve breakfast at the NAACP Celebration Breakfast. The Rome charter of NAACP celebrated Martin Luther King Day as they at breakfast (family style.) While the Westmoreland Kiwanis and Lake Delta Kiwanis made the breakfast food, the Westmoreland Key Club was partnered with the Rome Catholic Key Club to serve the eaters. The delicious food included pancakes, sausage, toast, and scrambled eggs. Key Club received some knowledge of what the NAACP does while listening to their meeting. At the end of the breakfast, the Key Club shook hands with Congressman Michael Arcuri and New York State Senator Joe A. Griffo. This was a great experience for Key Club and we hope to do this breakfast again next year. Key Club attendees included Cory Iffert, Alex Lallier, and Jessica Harper.
Submitted by Alex Lallier, President Elect 2010-2011
W.T. Clarke Key Club
http://www.kiwanis-ny.org/news/view_news.php?nid=28
KPTC: Educating Local Clubs for a Safer Future
By Hannah Arnholt, North Shore High School
Ever since the North Shore Key Club had bought a Trauma Kit and donated it to a local cause, they have been involved with the Safe Kids program from the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Center (KPTC). The Safe Kids program is something that KPTC offers to local Key, Circle-K, and Kiwanis Clubs to educate each member on how to prevent pediatric trauma any way they can. This includes safe bicycle riding methods, ways to cross the street properly, and even swimming methods that prevent a child from drowning. They even show techniques to teach this information to children in the younger age group. One technique they show us is how to provide a child friendly presentation on how the brain can be damaged if someone rides without a helmet. What they do is use a brain mold to create a gelatin mold of the brain. From this they demonstrate what happens to the brain when it is harmed from a bicycle riding accident where no helmet was used.
The Safe Kids program also pushes the clubs that participate in the event to educate the children in each of their communities. From the techniques they teach, they certify each participant to educate people. The proper education in each community can greatly prevent pediatric trauma which is their overall aim. Therefore, the Safe Kids program is a great enrichment for clubs everywhere.
Chinese New Year Parade
By Fannie Law, Stuyvesant High School
Sunday morning. I’m rushing to go to the annual Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown. Thankfully, the parade didn’t start yet but there are a number of enthusiastic volunteers from Key Club there already. I take attendance on a notebook and store it in my backpack to fill out the event info for the Monthly Report Form later. This is my first time being in the parade and I was excited to be able to have the chance to participate. Growing up in Chinatown, this annual Sunday parade was one of the memories that stood out most vividly to me. I remembered the lion dances, the people waving from the floats, the loud explosions of confetti left and right. And now this year, I finally had the chance to be in the parade I had only ever seen from the front doors of my house. Everyone around me was excited as well, talking animatedly as we all got ready to start the parade. Our club was given a large banner which had the words “Kiwanis Club of Chinatown” on it printed in large, bold letters. As the parade started, we walked down the block side-by-side with other members from the Chinatown Kiwanis. Throughout the parade we waved eagerly and cheered loudly, wishing the people around us a happy new year. At the end of the day, my throat was sore but it was well worth the day I spent walking around Chinatown with both my friends in Key Club and the adults I’ve come to know in Kiwanis.
Stuyvesant Key Club - Chinatown UEAA Parade
The
Chinatown UEAA Parade (February 20th) was a rather interesting event
and was a pretty last-minute event. Though this was true, this event
turned out to be quite successful. Though it started at 9:00AM in the
morning, our members were not only eager, but also ready to take on jobs
assigned by UEAA, a non-profit organization in Chinatown. We were
assigned many jobs like flag-holding, crowd control, line watching, red
envelope distribution, etc. Besides the fact that we were able to help
out UEAA, we also learned quite a lot about Chinese traditions and the
reasons behind this parade. We were able to see many things like lion
dances and beautiful confetti flying into the skies of Chinatown. At the
end of the day, we were treated to a wonderful dinner with many great
Chinese dishes. After, we helped clean up and left just in time to see
the moon being followed by puffs of clouds in the dark, mysterious night
sky.
MS Climb to the Top
One of our most recent events was MS Climb to the Top (February 28th), a
very important event, in which participants climb up more than 60
flights of stairs to get up to the Top of the Rock. These participants
if not walking for themselves were walking for their family members and
friends. As volunteers of this event, we were responsible for
distributing T-shirts and food, managing the coat-check in area, and
many other tasks such as cheering on other participants. In this event,
my friends and I had to cheer on participants on the 55th floor. This
was a very important job, because participants needed support and an
extra source of motivation for them to keep walking. Though many of them
were tired, they still kindly thanked us for our support giving us
high-fives and even taking photos of us. Along the stairs were signs
containing information about MS and an interesting fact is that
three-fourths of the people with MS are women. At the end, after the end
of the climb, we had to walk up to the top as well. Even though we had a
lot less flights of stairs to climb, it was still a difficult and
tiring task, which made us realize how difficult this task was, to walk
up that many flights. After we climbed up to the Top of the Rock, we
took pictures of the beautiful skyscrapers, group photos, and even
photos of the antenna and the escalators. This event was not only a fun
event, but also one filled with great meaning and purpose.
Chinese New Year Parade
A fairly recent event we attended was the
Chinese New Year Parade, an annual parade in Chinatown, where many
organizations walk around spreading the spirit of Chinese New Year. We
walked with our sponsors, the Chinatown Kiwanis during the parade and
though there was a huge delay, things got back on track and we started
walking. During this parade, we made an effort to let more people know
of Key Club International’s existence and what we do to help the
community. As we walked we screamed out things like “Kiwanis” and
“Boomba” and many of our school’s Key Club cheers. We waved to the crowd
and greeted them in many languages (English, Cantonese, Mandarin,
Spanish, and Fujianese) to tell them “Happy New Year”. People not only
waved and smiled back, but they replied back to us. As we walked, we
held the Kiwanis banner proudly, walking in sync and with spirit. At the
end of the day, though some people lost their voices screaming, we were
treated to a lovely lunch. Through this experience, I believe that Key
Club has become more known to the community. This has been quite an
exciting and memorable experience.
Articles written by Daniel Ivan Lin, member of Stuyvesant Key Club.
Spotlight Articles
Andrew Keiser
Baldwin Senior High School Key Club
Division 7
There was a Bowlathon at Rockville Centre Lanes on February 27th, 2010 from 11am to 2pm. This very successful Bowlathon occurred to raise money in order to help two kids have the opportunity to go to Kamp Kiwanis for the summer. The event was very fun and it seemed like everybody was laughing and having a good time bowling. It was very social as well so that our club got to know the other clubs in our division even better and we got socially connected. This event impacted me by getting to know other key clubs in our division and other key clubbers, knowing that we all contributed to helping those two kids have a better summer, and the overall experience excited me. There should be these types of events more often to get the divisions more connected together.
There was a Trikathathon at the Levittown Library and the Bird Sanctuary on October 10th, 2009. In this Trikathathon, different divisions, key clubs, Kiwanis members, Key Builders, and Circle K members all joined together to help in multiple events. We build boo boo bunnies to give to people as a gift, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for people who need food, and we helped clean the bird sanctuary where all the garbage gets dumped so the birds could come back to a clean place to live. This was a great way to get to know other people who do the same kind of events as you. We worked with kids, teenagers and adults to help with all these events. We socially connected as helping organizations and we bonded as a whole. I think key club, Kiwanis, Key Builders and Circle K got closer and we can all help out at events like this more often to make a huge difference. This event was exciting, fun and interesting. We got excited to help with everything, it was fun to work with people we have never met before, and interesting to know how much people want to help and care for others to put together such a huge and successful event. This impacted other people by getting cute boo boo bunnies, hungry people getting food to eat like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and the birds living in a cleaner and healthier place. I was impacted by being able to help out so many people, making a difference, by knowing that so many people can do things like this to help others, and I got more connected with other people who help out with the same kind of events that I do.
Pajama Night occurred at Shubert Elementary School in Baldwin on September 6th, 2009 at 6pm.The money raised from Pajama Night by selling tickets to the event, baked goods, drinks and snacks was al donated to KPTC (Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Center). We watched kids’ movies with them and played games like duck duck goose. They all wore these cute little pajamas, and most brought their pillows and toys which they played with. They were having so much fun and they didn’t want to leave. This event was a nice gesture toward the kids in the Elementary Schools in Baldwin and they all seemed to want to come back. We got connected with these kids and it was a very fun and exciting event to go to. This impacted KPTC by raising and donating all the money to the charity to help kids get through and cured of their trauma that they went through. This impacted me by seeing that raising money can be fun, connecting with kids, positively impacting kids, connecting with fellow key clubbers, and knowing that we helped out kids with trauma.
There was a Trivia Challenge that occurred at Meadow Elementary School in Baldwin during a PARP (Parents are Reading Partners) session on March 1st, 2010 from 645pm to 8pm. We helped to entertain and play with the elementary school kids. We had so much fun and we were all excited to meet each other. The parents, teachers and especially the kids were very happy and appreciative. Some teachers even brought their kids. All the kids were having a good time and we were glad we could help out. Mostly everybody including the teachers, parents and key clubbers were wearing pajamas. The trivia game we created was kind of like jeopardy and it was pretty successful. It was educational and fun at the same time. We had categories like Science, History and English to make them think and not only was the questions some what difficult, but almost everybody got the questions right. We felt good afterwards since we helped out the teachers and parents and since we helped to organize and plan the event. This is something other key clubs should definitely think about helping out and planning to do.
Division II
Stephanie Salinas
Stay-Awake-Athon: Patchogue-Medford High School from Division Ii is
currently having a Stay-Awake-Athon on April 23, 2010. The event
includes a variety of activities, movies, Guitar Hero, and even a band,
all generously performing throughout the night in order to keep people
awake. Proceeds will go to the Make A Wish Foundation. It is strongly
suggested that other Divisions adopt this idea as a great fundraiser!
Masquerade Ball: Patchogue-Medford High School from Division II will be
having a Masquerade Ball on Friday, March 13, 2010. The event consists
of unlimited fun. People will enjoy music, pizza and drinks! Proceeds
will benefit the disaster in Haiti.
Fundraising Idea’s! : Patchogue-Medford High School of Division II will
be having a “Bowl-Athon” on March 14, 2010 and a laser tag event in the
very near future. These events require very dedicated committees in
order to set up a successful event that is both fun and beneficial.
Currently this money will be aimed to lower the price for the
Leadership Training Conference in April. Other divisions are invited to
take these ideas for their own fundraisers.
Stephanie Springer: Division II is proud to announce the graduation of
our very own Stephanie Springer. She is a very dedicated person who has
won all of our respect. We are proud to have had her as our Lieutenant
Governor and this years District Secretary. We hope Stephanie continues
her commitment to our home, school, and community and we wish her the
best in all she does!
Sanford H. Calhoun High School, Division 5
By Tatianna Flores
This year Sanford H. Calhoun High School's Key Club took part in a fall food drive to support 40 local families during to holidays. Key clubbers signed up for different shifts and the three local supermarket shops. As the local patrons passed by the members handed out fliers and asked if they would graciously donate a canned good or other non-perishable items. At some locations, within two hours 4 shopping carts of goods had been filled for the local families. Some even went above and beyond our expectations and brought out full bags of items to help out. The drive was a roaring sucess and the Key club was able to help out average people who just needed a helping hand.
Alexandra Foley, Sanford H. Calhoun High School Secretary - So far in the 2009-2010 school year my favorite event by far had to be the UNICEF change collection. I love the feeling of importance when I'm handed that little orange box that's contents can potentially change the life of a person. I personally find it fun to "trick-or-treat" for UNICEF. On Halloween most residents expect to give out candy, but when someone appears at your door to collect change for people in need and not their own selfish reasons it makes a statement in their mind and hopefully the idea is spread through word of mouth. I love the idea of helping out people in need but I particularly enjoy UNICEF collection for the fact that it helps on a much larger scale than just our community.
Melissa Gluck, Calhoun High School - Key Club is an amazing organization that I have happily been a part of for the past two years. My favorite activity of all time but that we didn't actually get to do this year, is the Breast Cancer walk. This year it was rained out, but we still raised an donated money to the American Cancer Association. All in all, my personal favorite activities to do in Key Club are the walks for different causes. Although they are quite simple and not exclusively for Key Clubbers, I find them to be an excellent way to bring together people who are all choosing to fight for the same cause, it is truly a beautiful thing. I remember my first breast cancer walk and just how moving it was. I didn’t expect to be so touched by it, but there I was walking with my fellow Key Clubbers getting all teary eyed as I watched families and friends wearing customized shirts for “Team…”, it was heartbreaking but at the same time inspirational. We were contributing to finding a cure for cancer…what’s more special than that?
Patchogue-Medford Key Club
On Sunday March 7, 2010, the Patchogue-Medford Key
Club along with another club from our school, Heifer Club, sponsored a
food drive to help benefit the cause of the Lighthouse Mission. The
Lighthouse Mission is a local charity that helps feed many hungry people
here on Long Island, while spreading the word of God. The members of
these clubs were able to collect a large amount of food and other
supplies the Lighthouse Mission needed. -Naomi Lange, Patchogue-Medford Key Clubber
On Febraury 28, our club had partnered up with another organization in our school and hosted a bowl-a-thon. It was a lot of fun. We raised over $700 and donated it all to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Everyday a child is diagnosed with a different type of disease. They are then transported to St. Jude's hospital in which they will recieve treatment. Alot of these families are not able to pay for their treatment. No parent should ver see their child suffer at such a young age. Every dollar donated can help a child i need. Every little counts. Donating money, hosting an event it doesnt matter. Just as long as you are doing it for a cause and helping someone in need and also having fun. Thats al that counts.
Domonique Moody, Martin Van Buren Treasurer 09-10
Jessica Lin
Key Club does many walks and raises money to help foundations such as Breast Cancer, Arthritis, Cystic Fibrosis, AIDS, March of Dimes, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and many more. Breast Cancer is a walk that Edward R. Murrow Key Club did. It was a really successful because over $1,500 was raised for this foundation. All the members and executive board members of Key Club helped raise a lot of money to help this foundation. Over 50 members of Key Club went to the Breast Cancer walk, located at Central Park in October of 2009.
Members were really excited and looking forward t this walk. On the day of the walk, it was raining. Members who signed up online showed up at the walk, making it really exciting to see the spirit. Even wit the rain, over 50 members showed up making the walk, a walk to remember, and fundraising, a success. The Breast Cancer walk in October 2009 was a success and a day of spirit.
There are many foundations and charities in the world that need our help. Key Club helps fundraise and volunteer at these foundations. UNICEF is an event that Edward R. Murrow Key Club participated in. Members in Key Club were given boxes to help collect money to feed children in Uruguay in mid-October. Over $1,000 was raised for UNICEF to help feed children. Members took their boxes, and went trick-o-treating with them from house to house to ask if people wanted to donate to UNICEF.
Over fifty members participated in helping to raise money for Uruguay. This is a memorable event because with all the coins and bills collected, the coins weighed over fifty pounds. All the coins and bills added up to over $1,000. While trick-o-treating, many people refused to donate, and some were very angry when we asked if they wanted to donate. Their not wanting to donate did not make us give up for the children in Uruguay. Raising money for the children in Uruguay was definitely a success.
Holiday Fair
The following blurb was written by member Akash Sharma of Susan E. Wagner's Key Club.
Upon entering the Holiday Fair at Susan E. Wagner High School, I was amazed by the huge turnout. Hundred of students and teachers gathered to this event in order to support the clubs at Wagner. We began planning this fair in response to the sudden expulsion of all bake sales and selling of candy. With no means of fundraising for many of the clubs, the Key Club decided to create an opportunity for all clubs. Our President, Veronica Lai, was the catalyst of this fair by coming up with the main ideas and getting as many clubs as possible to become involved. At first, the idea sounded great; however, I was a little skeptical of the execution. Would everything be done on time? Through the hard work and determination of the Key Club, the Holiday Fair was up and running on time.
The Holiday Fair provided students with an opportunity to purchase various types of food, clothing, and jewelry. The Student Organization was able to set up a video game competition using the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. The ROTC set up a miniature obstacle course in which students would be able to go through. The student with the fastest time won a great trophy. The Holiday gave students a chance to interact, eat, and have fun. Overall, the Holiday Fair was a huge success. Thanks to the hard work of the Key Club, many clubs at Wagner were able to make a great profit.
