When I first joined Key Club at the beginning of my freshman year, I did it for the same reason any nerd does anything in high school, and that was for my college application. Key Club is a high school service organization that focuses on serving your community as well as leading others. My first year in Key Club, was the year the club at my school was chartered, and to say it was falling apart before it even began was a bit of an understatement. Thanks to an amazing faculty advisor, and some last minute inspiration, we were able to pull it together and were really able to differentiate between the good committed members and those who didn’t really care, overall, despite all the hardships and all nighters, we had an awesome year, and started off our Key Club with a lot of potential.
Key Club is organized on three levels, first you have the club level with each individual member and club officers, then you have the district level which houses the district board including the 34 Lieutenant Governors, then you have the international level which includes the international board and trustees. Every year, in each district there is an annual convention called District Convention or DCON, which is our annual weekend event in which every club from the Carolinas District is invited to have fun, meet other Key Clubs, and share the past year’s achievements. For our club., it was really inspiring to go because before, most of our members really saw Key Club as a joke and didn’t care at all, but when we saw just how awesome it really is and how kids our age were making a difference just by participating in their club, I speak on behalf of all of our members in that we were revived and ready to start working for our club. I myself was very inspired because the first day of the convention, while I was registering our club, I decided to run for district office. I was essentially walking in blind for this election into a position that I knew nothing about, but sometimes spur of the moment decisions are the best ones. I decided to run for Lieutenant Governor, and my amazing friends stayed up until one with me to finish my speech. In the end I didn't actually need to give my speech, but everything worked out great because I left that weekend as a newly elected Lieutenant Governor.
When I was running to be Lieutenant Governor, part of what made it so scary was because I had to do it alone, I didn’t know anybody that was running and the entire process I felt in the dark about everything that was happening. While we were waiting for the results, I actually met a boy named Michael who went to a school nearby me, he was really nice but quiet. Coming out of the weekend, I left with one potential friend, instructions for our first training weekend, and about a million questions.
About a month later, Michael and I carpooled about two and a half hours away to Lake Waccamaw which was a retreat in the middle of nowhere where we would have our Basic District Leadership Experience, or BDLE. After a few too many awkward silences and uneasy conversations with my dad in the front seat, I was grateful to get out of the car. When we got there, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but it was nothing like the sight before my eyes. There must have been 40 kids just playing every game you could possibly imagine, smiling, laughing, and talking with what seemed like lifelong friends. As soon as we had registered, my dad left and Michael went to go socialize, stranding me with my luggage and no clue as to what to do. I was preparing myself for a weekend of focussing on my new obligations, but when I came back downstairs after stashing my luggage, all of a sudden I was one of them too.
That weekend I probably made 30 friends. We would soon come to discover that the DLE weekends were so packed, it seemed like months of work and meetings was jammed into two short days, which wasn’t a far stretch from the truth. As Lieutenant Governors of the Carolinas District, there were kids from all over the Carolinas, some lived about a mile down the street, and others 5 hours in the opposite direction, with everyone so far apart from each other, we had to jam pack our times together and make the most of them. Over the span of two days, I think we were overloaded with an obscene amount of new information, without a clue where to start. But I came prepared for an information overload, what I wasn’t prepared for was to make what felt like a second family overnight.
One thing about Key Clubbers, is that everyone is kind and cares about everyone else, it doesn’t matter who you are, because everyone has the common goal of making the world a better place. I didn’t think I had made such good friends as fast as I had ever before that. The thing was, that everyone was that everyone was the same, we were all confused about where to begin our terms and what to do, but we had each other, so we knew that it would all be okay. In two days, the other LTGs became my family, we fought together, we played with each other, but most importantly we loved each other unconditionally. We were United through Key Club over our passion for serving others, but will stay in contact for the rest of our lives because of the bonds we formed that first weekend in the middle of nowhere.
Key Club is a very important organization. It not only promotes change in the world through high school students, but it gives kids that don't belong anywhere, something to love, a cause to fight for, and a community to stand by. In this past year it has directed me onto so many new paths and opportunities, and I don’t think my life would be the same without it .
Key Club is organized on three levels, first you have the club level with each individual member and club officers, then you have the district level which houses the district board including the 34 Lieutenant Governors, then you have the international level which includes the international board and trustees. Every year, in each district there is an annual convention called District Convention or DCON, which is our annual weekend event in which every club from the Carolinas District is invited to have fun, meet other Key Clubs, and share the past year’s achievements. For our club., it was really inspiring to go because before, most of our members really saw Key Club as a joke and didn’t care at all, but when we saw just how awesome it really is and how kids our age were making a difference just by participating in their club, I speak on behalf of all of our members in that we were revived and ready to start working for our club. I myself was very inspired because the first day of the convention, while I was registering our club, I decided to run for district office. I was essentially walking in blind for this election into a position that I knew nothing about, but sometimes spur of the moment decisions are the best ones. I decided to run for Lieutenant Governor, and my amazing friends stayed up until one with me to finish my speech. In the end I didn't actually need to give my speech, but everything worked out great because I left that weekend as a newly elected Lieutenant Governor.
When I was running to be Lieutenant Governor, part of what made it so scary was because I had to do it alone, I didn’t know anybody that was running and the entire process I felt in the dark about everything that was happening. While we were waiting for the results, I actually met a boy named Michael who went to a school nearby me, he was really nice but quiet. Coming out of the weekend, I left with one potential friend, instructions for our first training weekend, and about a million questions.
About a month later, Michael and I carpooled about two and a half hours away to Lake Waccamaw which was a retreat in the middle of nowhere where we would have our Basic District Leadership Experience, or BDLE. After a few too many awkward silences and uneasy conversations with my dad in the front seat, I was grateful to get out of the car. When we got there, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but it was nothing like the sight before my eyes. There must have been 40 kids just playing every game you could possibly imagine, smiling, laughing, and talking with what seemed like lifelong friends. As soon as we had registered, my dad left and Michael went to go socialize, stranding me with my luggage and no clue as to what to do. I was preparing myself for a weekend of focussing on my new obligations, but when I came back downstairs after stashing my luggage, all of a sudden I was one of them too.
That weekend I probably made 30 friends. We would soon come to discover that the DLE weekends were so packed, it seemed like months of work and meetings was jammed into two short days, which wasn’t a far stretch from the truth. As Lieutenant Governors of the Carolinas District, there were kids from all over the Carolinas, some lived about a mile down the street, and others 5 hours in the opposite direction, with everyone so far apart from each other, we had to jam pack our times together and make the most of them. Over the span of two days, I think we were overloaded with an obscene amount of new information, without a clue where to start. But I came prepared for an information overload, what I wasn’t prepared for was to make what felt like a second family overnight.
One thing about Key Clubbers, is that everyone is kind and cares about everyone else, it doesn’t matter who you are, because everyone has the common goal of making the world a better place. I didn’t think I had made such good friends as fast as I had ever before that. The thing was, that everyone was that everyone was the same, we were all confused about where to begin our terms and what to do, but we had each other, so we knew that it would all be okay. In two days, the other LTGs became my family, we fought together, we played with each other, but most importantly we loved each other unconditionally. We were United through Key Club over our passion for serving others, but will stay in contact for the rest of our lives because of the bonds we formed that first weekend in the middle of nowhere.
Key Club is a very important organization. It not only promotes change in the world through high school students, but it gives kids that don't belong anywhere, something to love, a cause to fight for, and a community to stand by. In this past year it has directed me onto so many new paths and opportunities, and I don’t think my life would be the same without it .