Candy Cane Grams

The week before winter break, students at Seaforth High School were able to buy Candy Grams (candy canes with a sweet note connected to them) for their friends. Their Key Club organized and delivered the Candy Grams and the money made from this project went to Operation Gratitude. Operation Gratitude makes care packages that are sent out to deployed military during Christmas Time. Seaforth Key Club was able to raise $271 thanks to the amazing students who supported them!

Devlin's Trivia Night

The goal of this project was to raise money for lung cancer in honor Helen Devlin, Hickory High School Key Club's former Kiwanis advisor who passed away from lung cancer.

On February 27th, the Hickory High School Key Club hosted a virtual trivia night fundraiser for lung cancer with the help of Division 6 Key Clubs at Bandys High School and St. Stephens High School. Helen Devlin, Hickory High Key Club's former Kiwanis advisor, passed away from lung cancer on July 10, 2020. Key Club members who knew her wanted a way to honor her memory and impact on their school and community of Hickory while raising awareness for lung cancer. Working with the Lung Cancer Initiative, they were able to organize and host a virtual trivia night fundraiser with 20 participants. Local businesses also donated prizes to be distributed to the top three trivia winners and fundraising teams. Ultimately, the Key Clubs were able to raise $3,636 for lung cancer research and awareness while honoring Helen Devlin.

This project was submitted by 2020-2021 Division 6 Lieutenant Governor, Annie Luong!

Second Harvest Food Bank Food Drive

Over the course of two weeks, Key Club members from Butler Key Club were encouraged to donate to the Food Drive by dropping off their items to a bin at the front of the school. At the end of the drive, Key Club president Sebine Jacobson delivered all of the donations to the Second Harvest Food Bank in Charlotte. The Butler Key Club ended up donating over 139 pounds of food and raised enough money for the food bank to buy over 700 more pounds of food.

Operation Christmas Child

The purpose of this project was to bring Christmas cheer and joy through thoughtful gifts, cards, ornaments, and other items.

On Friday, December 11th, the Croatan High School Key Club made Christmas Cards and Ornaments for 8 local nursing homes in the Carteret-Onslow County area. Throughout the months of October and November, the Croatan High School Key Club has been in contact with these local nursing homes, sending them letters, works of art, and music videos. They loved what was sent, with some Key Club Members becoming pen pals. Since the correspondence got a great reception, they decided to bring them some holiday cheer! They made 90-100 cards, decorated them, and filled them with artwork and heartwarming messages. They also made and decorated 45 ornaments to send as well. They further packed 5 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Operation Christmas Child is a ministry outreach program that searches to bring children who wouldn't normally receive gifts hope and joy. Shoeboxes are filled with many different items, including small toys, school supplies, personal hygiene, and crafts. Through this program, over 100 million shoeboxes get shipped every year to over 100 countries.

This group of individuals from Croatan High School’s Key Club would like to extend a big thank you to its members and advisors, Mrs. Dorgan and Ms. Brinegar!

Read for a Smile

Students from Raleigh Charter High School’s Key Club organized a virtual event where Key Club members read books to children online. They planned this event to lead a joyful learning experience for a local community center during the pandemic!

The Tammy Lynn Center is a place for parents who want to improve the local options for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Today, TLC’s work benefits children, adults, and families through a diverse range of on-site and community-based programs. For their first event of the year, Key Club volunteers sent videos reading children's books to be played at TLC as entertainment for the residents. They read both online books and physical books to serve their community!

Submitted by Riya Kabra from Raleigh Charter High School.

Carteret Big Sweep

Croatan High School and West Carteret High School Key Clubs partnered together to clean our local beaches on September 19th, International Coastal Cleanup Day. They had 10 Key Club members clean up the Bogue Inlet Pier and 10 Key Club members clean up the Islander Beach Access, along with some Kiwanis members from the community. Over 2 hours between both locations, over 15 pounds of trash was collected, including 1,000+ cigarettes. The trash collected during the clean up was tracked using a data form that goes to the Center for Marine Science and Technology in Morehead City. The data from our cleanup and cleanups throughout Carteret County are analyzed, and help scientists make reports on items that are of local concern. The event helped keep our community clean, and the data will help our community reduce our impact on the environment.

Farmworkers Project

On Friday, August 7, 2020, and Saturday, August 8, 2020, a group of students and community members of Sampson County completed their first-ever Farmworkers Project. On both of the days, over 15 students appear and served their time to the community. These community members physically went out into the farms, where the workers were located and give out drinks to the workers. Not only did these students serve their time to these farmworkers, but they also donated hydrating beverages and money to help the farmworkers stay hydrated! Although the sun was not out all day, these farmworkers still suffered in the intense summer heat! Thanks to these groups of students and the community’s donation, they successfully gave away hydrating beverages to over 200 farmworkers! They targeted six farms in Sampson County and surrounding areas. Not only did the students help these farmworkers, but they also shared the awareness of how much America needs to appreciate and show gratitude to these workers as they provide food to families across the nation. They plan to continue this project, obtain the support of the community, and to engage the youth in understanding the importance of serving our farmworkers and community! This event was overseen by Lieutenant Governor 11D, Submitter's Name: Yadira Paz-Martinez.

Mask Giveaway for Coronavirus

Wake Early College of Health and Science, of Key Club Division 12B, came together on June 19th to give away free masks to those in need. This idea was sparked by the announcement made on that day that masks would become mandatory in public, Due to the shortage of masks available to those who are unable to find, make, or purchase them, these students came up with this idea. Thus, the group convened in Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, and gave away over 250 face masks to those in need. They even made signs and posters to promote the safe practice of wearing a mask!

Tissue Boxes for Teachers

 It started out with just a simple concept inspired by our Lieutenant Governor, Sara Baker. Together, we noticed that right before flu season our teachers were running out of tissue boxes. Although they may seem simple, in reality tissue boxes are a classroom necessity that students have begun to expect. But the problem is that once December rolls around teachers usually have run out of the boxes they purchased at the beginning of the year. Since teachers are given a certain amount of money that they have to buy classroom goods all year round, a problem arises once this money runs out: these teachers have to take money out of their own pocket to purchase classroom goods. The Tissue Box Project allowed teachers not to have to buy boxes, but instead simply receive them from Wando's Key Club. 

Once we notified a need, we set forth in gathering all the tissue boxes necessary. Over three weeks we worked through Key Club to collect as many tissue boxes as possible. Through the work of our "Key Clubbers" we were able to collect over 311 boxes. That is over three boxes per Key Club member at Wando! Additionally, we were able to provide one tissue box for every Wando Teacher and two tissue boxes for every Wando Administrator. In the future, we hope to be able to expand this effort even further to have over two boxes for each teacher. Hopefully, The Tissue Box Project can become a Wando Key Club staple! 

Once we had collected all the boxes, we began to deliver them. Through the hard work of our Key Clubbers we were able to deliver all of the tissue boxes to the teachers- something that is a lot harder than it looks on our ¼ mile campus. The reaction from teachers was unbelievable; it was like Christmas had come early and all their wishes were met. 

Overall, The Tissue Box Project was a huge success. As a Key Club, we felt very proud to have such a large effect on the Wando Community.

A Key Club Christmas

This December, Key Clubs in Division 11B collected a total of 287 toy donations for Duke University Children's Hospital's annual Snow Blitz event. Snow Blitz is a function the hospital holds each Christmas season in which the holiday coordinators set up a "store" inside of the building consisting of the donations received. The parents of admitted patients are able to go to this "store" and pick out presents (completely free of charge) for their children to receive for Christmas. The gifts are wrapped up and delivered to the children's' hospital rooms on Christmas morning for the children to wake up to. These Key Clubs worked hard to help make this Christmas the best it could be for the children admitted to Duke University Children's Hospital.

Holly Springs Christmas Parade

The Key Clubs of Division 12a gathered together for this festive service project in their town's Christmas parade! These Key Club members walked with the Holly Spring Kiwanis Club in the Parade, spreading the message of service and philanthropy that the Kiwanis family is known for.

Feeding Avery Families: Empty Bowls

Every year, Avery High School participates in an event called 'Empty Bowls'. Empty Bowls is an amazing event that brings both high schoolers, art, and service together to serve a wonderful cause! All the art classes in our high school take two days to make as many beautiful bowls as they can! Last year, I got to participate in the bowl making process. Our goal is to make bowls that are beautiful, or quirky, or interesting so people coming to the Empty Bowls service event later can bid on them. These bowls are then fired in the kiln, glazed, re-fired, and donated to Feeding Avery Families. After this, local churches and community members alike will donate drinks, food, desserts, bread but most importantly...soup! Typically this event is held in the fall or winter at a local well known church or country club. Everyone is welcome to come and help or eat! The food is free, but donations are excepted through buying a bowl the high schoolers make! It's a great project for everyone to participate in and everybody who participates feels glad they did! All profits go to buying food for the needy families and whatever bowls don't sell that year are used again in next year's event.

SOCKtober

Academic Magnet High School, Berkeley High School, Bishop England High School, Charleston Charter School for Math and Science, May River High School, and Wando High School from Division 21 Collected 3,756 pairs of socks to be donated to homeless shelters across the Charleston area. Throughout the month of October, clubs encouraged their members to bring in socks through friendly competition and incentives. On October 28th, all of the clubs gathered together in Hampton Park in Downtown Charleston to count socks, eat food, learn more about homelessness, and bond as a division. May River High School from Bluffton, South Carolina collected the most donations!

Would you like to have your club's service project featured on Spotlight on Service? Submit to the form here!

Thirst Project 5K

South Johnston High School was inspired by the Thirst Project and the global water crisis plaguing the world. They wanted to start the year off with a big and fun event to kickoff the year, so they came up with the 5K Water Run! It worked just like a color run but they sprayed runners with water instead! After hard work on ironing out the details and promoting, they hosted the event on September 30th, 2017. The money raised will be donated to the Thirst Project and to their club's other projects! It was a success that was very much enjoyed, and they are already planning on doing it again next year!

Would you like to have your club's service project promoted on our website? Submit to Spotlight on Service here! 

Woof Woof, Who's Doing Service?

In the past year, Harnett Central High School did an amazing and creative service project for a local animal shelter. The club helped by making dog toys for the shelter. The process is very simple. The club asked their members to donate old T-shirts for them to cut up. You then, cut off the sleeves and then cut six, one-inch strips up near the collar. Then, you make a knot at the top where the collar is and then cut the collar off as well. With the strips, you braid it to the end and then knot them. As the club says, this project is very simple and helps out the local animal shelter. Your club can do something like this to help the local animal shelter or some other type of gift for other organizations in your community! I hope this inspires a project in your club!

Happy Halloween from Key Club!

In the spirit of Halloween, our Spotlight on Service this week will be on a Halloween-themed service project! 

From North Brunswick High School, Key Clubbers wanted to honor a well loved teacher who had passed away suddenly. However, in order to create a memorial for the teacher, a large amount of money would have to be raised. As it occurred around Halloween, the club brainstormed several ideas and decided to create an event called the “Haunted Hospital”. The Haunted Hospital was held on the night of Halloween and helped give medical care to those in the local community for 2 dollars.

After the fundraiser was completed, the Key Club had raised enough money to  create the memorial for the late teacher. In addition, the extra money raised was put towards cleaning up the school.

This Key Club's innovative and holiday-themed fundraiser was extremely successful in raising money and helping their school and community.

What can your club do for our next holidays? Help out at a shelter on Thanksgiving? Fundraise for Christmas for Children this December! Or do you have your own service project to submit? Submit on the form on the Spotlight on Service page! We hope to see your submission chosen next!

"Food Bank Fun"

How can you help your local community grow and succeed? Spend a day at your local food bank much like these Key Clubbers from Charlotte! 

Key Clubbers from South Charlotte Homeschool spent a day at the Second Harvest Food Bank and made a huge difference. What is the Second Harvest Food Bank? The Second Harvest is a non-profit organization that aims to find, fix, package and distribute various goods and materials for those in need. These items can range anywhere from paper towels, candles, bottled water to batteries. As a non-profit organization, they depend on the contributions and donations of charitable benefactors and volunteers to help them achieve their goal. Who fits this role better than Key Clubbers? 

These Key Clubbers were in charge of package inspections; their job being to search through the organized boxes of donations and make sure everything was properly categorized and that nothing was damaged. If an item was damaged, they would mend, tape, fix, or replace as needed. Second Harvest has become an annual service project for the South Charlotte Homeschool Key Club, and the organization is one of their favorites to work with. 

Almost every city or community has a food bank and every Key Club has the ability to go out and help organizations like the Second Harvest Food Bank thrive and donate to the less fortunate. Contact your local food banks or similar organizations to truly make an impact on your community and being able to feel the difference you made in someone's life.

"Dip Bowl"

McDowell Early College, in Marion, North Carolina, hosted an amazing and successful fundraiser at their school's Key Club. Cleverly titled the Dip Bowl, the club's project allowed both students and staff to show off their salsa making skills! Those who attended paid a small fee to sample the different dips at the Dip Bowl! The club raised over $100 which they used to help their club and donated to March of Dimes, one of Key Club's preferred charities! This awesome idea can be incorporated into any Key Club's projects! Consider this for your next project! 

Don't forget to submit your club's project idea for inclusion on the Carolinas District Website!

What is Spotlight on Service?

What is Spotlight on Service? 

Spotlight on Service is a way to highlight individual club projects in the Carolinas. There will be posts on the website every month with a photo and a description of an outstanding Key Club service project. If you're searching for inspirational ideas to implement in your club or recognition for fantastic club members, Spotlight on Service is a great place to look. 

So how do I submit a Spotlight on Service entry? 

Any club advisor, officer, or member can submit a potential Spotlight on Service post to be considered for the website feature. To do so, send an email to spotlight@carolinaskeyclub.org and include the following: at least one quality photo and a detailed paragraph explaining the project or event. The email also needs to include the school's name and any important information you would like to have posted, such as the names of the Key Club members in the submitted photo(s).