My Key Club Story: Reaching my Destination

Towards the end of my 9th grade year, I was dreading going to high school (in Puyallup, high schools only have grades 10-12). Some of my closest friends had either moved away or went to a different school, and I just knew it was going to be a rough year. I tried to stay positive and decided to join clubs. One of them was Key Club. I had known about it since elementary school as I had an older friend who told me about it and also happened to serve as the president of her club. Thanks to her, I never went through the “do they actually make keys?” phase. Key Club was not everything I had hoped for in the beginning. I had experienced the service aspect of it and even got many of my community service hours from my club by signing up for every event. It was the social aspect that I was missing. During my first year, our club was struggling with having a new advisor and many events had to be cancelled due to unexpected circumstances. I did get to be one of four members of my club to attend DCON, and this is when I found that our division was a greater challenge. We had no t-shirts, no cheers, and no spirit. Despite this, if it wasn’t for DCON, I wouldn’t have been exposed to the social aspect of Key Club or made my first Key Club friends until much later. After seeing much bigger and united dragons and bumblebees, I realized that communication was the biggest obstacle in both my club and division. Although I became the new Activities Coordinator of Puyallup High School Key Club and an Executive Assistant on the Divisional Board before DCON, it wasn’t until after attending workshops and seeing the awards at closing session that I decided it was my personal responsibility to retain club members and promote unity within our division. Since then, there have been times where I have been immersed in Key Club for hours. I looked for resources, contacted officers, and learned about more service opportunities. It has only been one year since I became a member but my head is already exploding with so many ideas from ways to fundraise to starting a builder’s club at the junior high school. Key Club is where I truly found my passion for service and developed my leadership skills. It brings different people together who are dedicated to the same thing: service. That is what I love the most about this organization. As Key Clubbers, we should teach others about the importance of service and increase our involvement in the community. What better way to leave a lasting impact on both people and yourself?