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VOLUME 20 | ISSUE 1

THE MONTHLY SUNSHINE

may 2020

Key Club International | CNH District |Region 3| Division 30 South| Oxford Academy Key Club

In this issue

but the journey continues

editor’s note president’s corner | goal tracker may calendar

going virtual

history of key club look on the bright side

club updates | division’s updates

recognition

an unexpected beginning

hi suns!

Welcome to my first, of many newsletters to come! I’m proud to be serving you, not only as your bulletin editor, but your division’s ex ective assistant, as well. Please don’t ever be afraid to say hi or contact me for help, I promise I don’t bite :) If you can’t find me, then just look down, at least, that’s what many people say they do. I understand that this term didn’t start out as we thought it would, but it doesn’t give us any reason to stop serving or working hard. Let’s take advantage of this current situation and keep doing what we do best! As service can strongly influence the world, it can mean the world to certain people, as well, so remember that as you participate in our service events :) As for me, I’ll start early on my newsletter for next month, unlike this one. I heard that my first newsletter was going to my hardest obstacle, as a bulletin editor, so it gives me relief that I overcame this hurdle. My original goal was to get my newsletter out by the middle of the month, but as you can see, that obviously didn’t happen. But despite losing all my work when I was half-way done and ending up reYour New-BEE Bulletin Editor, starting from scratch, I’m quite proud of myself for even finishing. Let’s hope for better luck next month :) Until then, keep up the good work suns!

Christina Nguyen

editor’s note

Christina Nguyen OAKC Bulletin Editor

president’s corner | goals tracker | 5

president’s corner hello all

and happy new term, suns! I know circumstances haven’t been normal recently, but please know that I’m fighting hard to keep our club alive even during the quarantine. I hope you are also encouraged to continue volunteering for Key Club through at-home projects. Our mission as Key Clubbers doesn’t change even if we can’t stay outside, so please have faith and keep on serving. It’s at times like these where the community needs our help the most, and although the types of necessary aid have changed since COVID-19, we can still make our mark. Key Club has always been a place to cultivate leaders of change and role models in the world of volunteering, and that doesn’t need to be any different now. I know online school has been a rough adjustment for many. These times can entail stress, anxiety, and fear since the future is so uncertain. Keep your heads up, though— I’ll keep mine up. A great way to overcome the feelings that come with being stuck home is to do things that make you feel at ease. It could mean participating in our service projects, but it could also just include letting yourself relax. Find yourself in this time where we may feel most alone. Sometimes, doing less is more, so let your own personal priorities preside over anything, especially studying and homework. Keep on shining, suns! These days, the world needs to see more people doing that.

Timmy Bui Timmy Bui OAKC President

19.6% 1100/5600

PTP FUNDS 0% 0/1500

goals tracker

SERVICE HOURS

4 | may calendar

MAY SUN

MON

TUE

WED

THU

FRI

SAT

Coronavirus Support for Kids in China

7 Charity Miles Free Rice

Coronavirus Support for Kids in China

Charity Miles Free Rice In-Service

Coronavirus Support for Kids in China

Charity Miles Free Rice

Coronavirus Support for Kids in China Videos to Seniors

Charity Miles

May DCM

Division Service Week Coronavirus Support for Kids in China

31 Cypress x Oxford x JFK Social

UPCOMING

June 21: FATHERâ€™S DAY APPRECIATION

June 1 - 5: SERVICE WEEK

June 27: JUNE DCM

June 13: BOOK DISTRIBUTION

June 1 - 30: CHARITY MILES

June 20: OFFICIER TRAINING CONFERENCE (OTC)

club updates | division updates | 5

CLUB UPDATES Cypress x Oxford x JFK Social

Charity Miles

WHEN: May 1

FreeRice Download the app FreeRice from your App/Play Store, and create an account. and upload it to the form! You can earn a maximum of 5 hours of service.

Volunteers will earn TIME : 3 PM - 5 PM money for Although many charity for events have been every mile canceled, that walked/ doesn't mean we ran still can't have fun through at socials! Start off an app called Charity Miles. Afsummer break with ter the desired amount of exera blast with othcise has been reached, screener Key Clubbers shot the running history and subfrom Cypress High School and John F. mit through the google form. For Kennedy High School. Join us to partici- every 2 miles, volunteers will earn pate in fun activities and games while 1 hour of service. You can earn a making new friends! maximum of 6 hours

Division Service Week WHEN: May 25 - 29

May DCM: Charity Trivia WHEN: May 30 TIME: 3 PM - 4 PM Join the rest of the division and learn about the four preferred charities as well as their causes. This will be followed by a game of Kahoot to test your knowledge.

Send one email at the end of the week (by Friday night!!) with proof of every single activity you did and the duration that each activity was performed for. Consists of Mental Health Monday, Therapy Tuesday, Workout Wednesday, Thriving Thursday, Food Bank Friday.

MNT Change-forChange Fundraiser This fundraiser is focused on collecting spare change from members to be donated to funding vaccines to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus. The LAST DAY to donate is May 31.

DIVISION UPDATES

6 | an unexpected beginning

Start of the New Term | 12 | Lance Sahagun Hello OAKC! This past month has been quite a rollercoaster, hasn’t it! First, I’d like to formally say hello to all of you! My name’s Lance, and I’m an incoming senior who will serve as your next treasurer, but you probably already know me as one of the DLT guys with a camera who does the dumb hand thing. Regardless, I wish we could’ve had a more formal, in person greeting. Nonetheless, the prospect of starting this new term has gone from very exciting to quite frightening! Looking back on the past month, I hope I can speak for all of us in that we are trying to find the light at the end of this tunnel. From the sudden rise of this pandemic completely changing the landscape of everything we know and are accustomed to, leading to the cancellation of multiple events (DCON, Division Banquet, March DCM, etc.), I never truly felt the closure I hoped to achieve. Although this is quite unfortunate, the most we can do collectively is to pick our heads back up and adjust to the climate we are temporarily stuck in.

an unex be

Comparing myself to my IP-treasurer, Grace, adds to this fear I have tugging at my heart. The accolades I’ve achieved this past term have come from motivation from many different people and circumstances, and very subtly, you’ve been one of them Grace. Grace, not only are you extremely inspirational to me, but the impact you’ve left within this club does not and should not go unnoticed. Although my dreams of beating you may be in jeopardy due to our situation, I can’t help but thank you for what you’ve done and respect you greatly. I hope that you can enjoy your last year of Key Club, because out of everyone I know, you deserve the most.

Looking ahead, nobody knows when we will return to a level of normality that can allow us to run operations as we have always run them. Now is the time for creative, out of the box thinking to maintain our service, and especially our fundraising. As I work with our fellow treasurers throughout the division, I ask for your patience and help in regards to my job. You don’t understand how much it’s killing me inside to not be out there planning for and hosting fundraisers as we normally have. My plans for multiple restaurant fundraisers and sales at DCMs have been quietly shut down (however I hope to find the right time to begin merch sales soon)! Don’t get me started on bake sales :’(( What I can say with confidence is that the circumstances we currently face will not permanently disable our club. Most especially, I know we have the full capability to overcome these hurdles and adapt to whatever challenges face us together, because this term will be like no other before it, for the better and the worse. Now more than ever, we must be united and resilient for whatever comes our way.

Out of the other seniors on board, I’m the latest to this Key Club journey, but what a journey it’s been so far. I can’t wait to spend the twilight of it serving you at this level. I wish you all good health, safety, and happiness in these trying times, and I can’t wait to see you all in person again.

A New Term | 10 | Devanshi Kothari None of us could have imagined how this last term has ended and how this new one has started. However, now going through this, I realize that this situation has allowed us to become creative and as my first term, serving on the board, I am extremely excited about this new role despite the dire situation. Through this isn’t the starting I had wanted or expected, I am thrilled to be serving as a historian and hope I can fulfill the expectations in these new circumstances. Looking at this different and special year ahead, I hope to be able to serve my community, school, and eager for this different view on duties. Additionally, I feel many Key-clubbers did amazing work last term and were unable to get the closure they deserved. Therefore, I think with the start of a new term with everyone at home, I promise everyone that I will try my best to make the best out of this situation and work extremely hard. Overall, I will say that I am extremely excited and would like to focus on all the positives of this situation despite the unplanned and unexpected situation. I notice the frustration around me from being pent up in the house but volunteering helps me use a lot of my time to be useful and helpful to others.

xpected eginning

With online volunteering, chatting with Chinese students, appreciating our staff, and attending a DCM through Discord, I truly believe making the best of any situation is what Key Clubbers do best. Cheers to an amazing term ahead!

Transitioning This Term | 12 | Timmy Bui

Honestly, I’ve been a part of Key Club for so long. Not many people have been here to see the club grow since what, 2017? Despite everything that I’ve experienced in this club so far, it’s still hard to get used to the introduction of a new term. This month has had its own fair share of ups and downs. Well, most people would only say there were downs, but that wouldn’t be such a great thing to hear from a leader. The club has taken a huge blow from quarantine. It’s not just the fact that there are no more events happening outside— it’s also the fact that there’s an entirely new board that had to be trained and guided over phone and email only. Adjusting to the times in terms of school got in the way of adjusting with respect to Key Club so much. I feel as if I should’ve planned my weeks better. Bitter as moments were, there are still things I learned that I can carry forth into the upcoming months. It’s easy to lose motivation in times such as these, but I know that I can’t stop now. In the end, I didn’t join Key Club for myself. I’m in this club to build others up. I’m going to pick myself—and my club—up so that we can break expectations. Perhaps I stuck myself in the past for too long. I commonly thought back to our accomplishments last term, which I refer to as the peak of OAKC. I always found myself looking forward to the days when social distancing would come to an end, when we could finally get to work outside, even though I should have been focusing on what the club could do in the present. But I know that it’s not about blaming certain people or the global crisis for our shortcomings— all of that’s already happened. It’s about focusing on what’s ahead of us so that we can grow.

Start of QuaranTERM | 10 | Christina Nguyen People are always surprised by how fast time can pass by, but for some reason, time can go so slow in math class :,) Ok, math has nothing to do with Key Club, but it's crazy to me that the new term has started already! Although my first term in Key Club didn’t have the closure that I wanted it too, there’s really nothing that I could’ve done about the circumstance. I’d have to admit, being in isolation has taken a toll on my wants to volunteer and I deeply apologize for that. I understand that now as an officer, I have to continuously stand as a role model for other members and stay on top of my duties, even in tough situations. Currently, quarantine has caused our club to be extremely creative with our service project, so PLEASE thank Tiffany and Claire because they’ve been doing a great job :) At times, it makes me quite frustrated that I’ll never have the carefree life that I had when I first started and now carry burdens to ensure the success of our Key Club. The start of the new term has opened me to new opportunities, but personally, going from a member to handling two positions is currently something that I’m still getting used to. No one warned me that the work was going to hit me like a truck. As for volunteering, I’m sorry that quarantine has caused me to dip in hours for some time, but I promise that I’ll try my hardest to make the best of our situation. I understand that many people have big plans for me in Key Club, but to me, it feels like my journey just started. I’ve been burdened to live up to other people’s expectations and it has made me question many times if I’m worthy of a position, which takes away the point of Key Club. I noticed that I’m afraid of disappointing people, but I realized that I should just work hard and accept whatever happens. To have the honor to serve both the club and division is an honor that I hope to uphold and is quite difficult, so please have faith in me as I attempt to overcome the tall hurdles in my path.

Another Start | 11 | Lydia Lee Less than a year ago, I was excited to just take pictures for Oxford Academy Key Club. It was a new start for a new term filled with anticipation! Now, I’m back again with that same excitement for a different purpose. As a historian, I was lacking in many aspects; however, I am still proud of my pictures and the work that I presented. Although our scrapbook was never able to be judged, I have no doubt that it would’ve won an award because we put our hearts and souls into it. My days of being a historian are over and now the three new officers have to fill in the steps that we left behind while I go on to bigger things. A year ago, I didn’t even want to run for secretary because I wanted to be treasurer. Plus, Timmy always looked stressed and slept much later than the rest of the executive board. :( Of course, I ended up running for secretary instead and somehow even winning. I had a change of heart for so many different reasons, but mainly because I didn’t want to ever consider making and selling spam masubi ever again hehe. Now, as secretary I am in charge of all our emails, MRFs, and the hours tracker. This may seem like an extremely difficult and daunting task at first, but I’m taking baby steps! It hasn’t even been a month since I officially claimed the title of secretary, but I’ve already submitted my first MRF to the division and have sent out quite a few emails. Somehow, it’s been pretty fun. However, things aren’t going good at the moment. The global pandemic has abruptly limited all our physical events and our only source of hours are from virtual service projects or events that are extremely difficult to find and create. Not to mention fundraising which isn’t finding much luck either due to the current circumstances. The future is completely unpredictable and it’s sad that we can’t maximize our potential in service. But that makes every single hour we get so much more worth it. Every letter written to nursing homes for senior citizens or every 4 coloring pages, or maybe even attending that virtual class to teach middle schoolers from China or just filming a short video to show appreciation for the staff, it’s all worth it. At some point, hours are just a number, it doesn’t matter. Serve the community for the purpose of helping others. Realize that the little things you do can go far, regardless of how cliché that sounds! Every hour helps! We aren’t doing the best statistically and the other clubs have soaring numbers due to who knows what. The service opportunities we are presenting and displaying may not seem to be much work, but it’s honest work! But, hey, it’s another start and things are bound to change, and in the end, we’ll just have to work even harder for positive change. This article is much longer than I anticipated and thanks for coming to part 138572 of Lydia rants in her KC articles! <3

but the continues

but the journey continues| 9

journey

My Key Club Experience So Far | 10 | Kenneth Nguyen Wow! This term has gone by so fast! Just 7 months ago, I remember joining Key Club. I still remember my first Key Club event, which was one week before Club Rush, where I attended Hope Food Distribution. After finally seeing all my friends attending it, I decided to see what it was all about. Meeting new people, I started to enjoy hanging out and volunteering, so I started to attend numerous events a month, serving up to 11 hours a day because of all the fun I was having. Knowing many board members and older general members, I saw familiar faces during school and said hello to them. Key Club allowed me to spend time volunteering rather than doing nothing at home, and I made a contribution to the community. I hope this term will be one of the best there has ever been, with lots of service and spirit! Wanting to sign up for the limited-spots events, I started to pay attention to when Timmy started emailing, so I was able to sign up for the events that I was interested in, which was basically all of the events that were emailed. With all the events that I signed up with, I volunteered countless hours just to volunteer. However, I was having a good time. I remember volunteering at the St. I Fiesta, where I worked in a funnel cake booth for 2 days, with around 6-9 hours each day. I volunteered with Gianna Garza, a friend I had made this year through our classes and through Key Club, for one of the days, and we had so much fun. We were able to decorate the funnel cakes and take orders, but unfortunately had to face some unhappy, impatient, and rude customers, which caused so much stress for us. Despite all that stress, we had such a wonderful full time, adding it onto our memories. With this event as one of my first events, it created such a great impression of how Key Club is like, which brings me to where I am today, a Key Club Board Member. All these memories since August 2019 have formed me into such a committed member to Key Club. Being a general member, I already felt that I had such a big contribution to the community and had so much fun, but I never imagined myself making it into Key Club Board 2020-2021 as Publicist to go even further with my contribution towards Key Club. Before appointed board applications were due, I saw some publicity on social media and the weekly emails to apply for Key Club Board, so I decided to try it out since it wouldnâ€™t hurt. Now, being a member of the Key Club Board, I am able to create even more memories with other board members and new members. Ever since the beginning of my Key Club journey, I have made new friends on board, basically knowing every single one of them and getting close to them. With dedication and confidence, I will take over their dedication and commitment, and not let them down with my duties. For next termâ€™s board, I know every single one of them and I know that we will make so many great memories together. I canâ€™t wait for this next term, and see what is to come. Working together with such committed and devoted board members of Oxford Academy Key Club, and becoming even closer to my board partner, Helen! I hope to see you all at the events, and create wonderful memories like I have and will make! Life has changed ever since March 13. Basically the last day of school for the year. School was cancelled for 2 weeks, and soon extended to the end of the year. Sadly, DCON 2020 and every single physical Key Club event including volunteering events, DCMs, and service projects were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. How have I stayed spirited and continue to serve? Key Club has many online events, such as the CoronaVirus chat with the Chinese kids, Letters to Nursery Homes, Color a Smile, and lots of other events. I have done every single one of the events that I have listed and I know that you should too! I hope that all of you are socially distancing yourselves by staying around six feet apart from everyone. Stay inside and only go out for emergencies or essential items.

7 | going virtual April DCM | 11 | Ryan Dang With the unfortunate case of Covid-19 closing down schools, events were much harder to plan and execute. I remember when school first closed, I felt a sense of discomfort as I, along with thousands of others, were thrown into a new experience that exposed us to many different types of monsters. Not only was I worried about my classes, but I was also stressing about what it meant for Key Club as social distancing was the complete opposite of a fun and interactive club like this one. However, this didn’t stop us Key-Clubbers from trying to get together and create memories with one another. One of the events that we had during Quarantine was the April DCM which was held on the live streaming platform Twitch as well as Discord. On the first platform, out LTG Jennifer Vo, went over distinguished awards for presidents, vice presidents, secretaries, as well as treasurers. She also went over old business such as the D30s Banquet and the division shirt design where the winner for the design was Ahsrita Singh from Oxford Academy. There was also the discussion of the division service project which was called Color-A-Smile. This was basically where one would print out and color pages and mail them to a specific address. This is where the company would then distribute them to hospitals in a way to spread positivity and happiness. Even though spreading positivity might sound a bit cheesy, it’s actually really important, especially in times of social distancing, to make sure everyone is feeling well and a kind picture or sentence can truly go a long way in making one's day. Jennifer also discussed the new goals for our coming school term, 2020-2021, which were to raise %16,000 for the Pediatric Trauma Program also known as PTP so that the CNH Key Club can help reduce the number of children in our district who are killed or injured by trauma. There is also a goal for our decision to reach about 34,000 hours of service and even though Covid-19 has put a little bit of a wrench into interacting with one another for a bit, I still believe that we’d be able to accumulate enough service hours to insurmountably surpass the goal. May 6th to May 10th is also known as Eliminate week which is a fundraising opportunity dedicated to eliminating maternal as well as neonatal tetanus which occurs after abortion or miscarriages which happen under unsatisfactory conditions. The money received during this week all goes to this fund to help out these children and donating $1.80 is enough for a vaccine so one doesn’t even have to donate a lot of money to create a huge impact. During the DCM, every participant also participated in a Skrrible.io match which was held in Discord where people were dispersed into 16 groups of 12 people. Even though we couldn’t see and interact with each other in real life, we were still able to have lots of fun during this online game of a drawing contest. In my discord lobby, it was a lot of fun and at times I could feel things getting really intense as at one point I remember the gap from 4th place to 1st place was only about 100 points. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up winning the game, however, I had a great time being able to talk and play with my fellow Key- Clubbers whom I haven’t seen in so long. Overall, the DCM was very fun and I’m really glad that I was able to talk with my friends.

going

virtual

Coronavirus Support for Kids in China | 11 | Tiffany Ong As a new project chair, it is my job to find events for the club to volunteer at. But during this time, when every event is cancelled and we can’t leave our houses, I was really struggling to think of how Key Clubbers could volunteer from home. I feel it is my duty to keep the club active despite these setbacks, since we can’t volunteer at our regular events such as the HOPE Food Distributions or city festivals anymore. I tried my best to come up with an event that Key Clubbers could participate in and enjoy, so I started talking to my friend about it, who I knew had created a little program in which she gathered a few volunteers to talk to a class of middle schoolers from China every week. I asked her if she wanted to recruit some Key Club volunteers to help her out, so a few volunteers could sign up and talk to the class. It took a lot of planning, since it was my first time in charge of an event. I honestly had no idea what I was doing, but it all turned out great in the end! My friend and I spent many hours trying to figure out how the system would work, and how volunteers could communicate with the Chinese students. We needed the volunteers to download an app, QQ, so volunteers could talk to the Chinese students. However, setting up the accounts did take quite a while because of all the complications, and it took over an hour to set up accounts for only 5 volunteers! However, after getting everyone to sign into QQ, everything ran pretty smoothly and the session was executed well. Before the session, the 5 volunteers joined a chat with a class of Chinese students. Then, we all presented a slideshow through voice memos, focusing on the topic of the coronavirus. There were slides asking students to respond to questions, such as “Do you prefer online school or regular school? Why?” The students each responded, and there were about 50 students in the class, so we spent around 15 minutes on each response slide. Volunteers also replied to the student responses, so we could all interact with each other and have conversations. After this first class, the Chinese teacher was really pleased with her experience and recommended us to many other teachers. We were able to find more classes for volunteers to talk to, and within 2 weeks, we found 10 classes in total. There were many more offers for even more classes, but we decided that 10 was more than enough. We also started to use another app, WeChat, since we thought that it was easier to set up accounts with that app (it wasn’t). This has all been pretty overwhelming, since setting up the accounts is very time consuming and tedious. Also, I have to keep track of all the hours, which is really confusing because the lengths of each session varies. Some can be an hour, and some go on for an hour and a half. But despite these challenges, I’m really thankful to be able to have this experience with the Chinese students. It is not only a great way for them to learn and practice their English, but also a great opportunity to get to know each other and make new friends from across the globe! Sometimes, we get really offtopic and start discussing things that give me a good laugh. For example, one student talked about how handsome Leonardo Dicaprio was, but said he had a glow down. And the teacher agreed! We also talked about Marvel movies, and many of the students talked about their love for Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland. Once, I said that I love fries, and the chat basically turned into a fries fanclub! We’ve talked about so many random things, such as the NBA, shopping during Black Friday (they have a similar holiday called Double Eleven), and even pet chickens! Overall, even though it has been a real struggle to set up all the accounts, the work paid off and now I’ve made so many new friends and memories with the Chinese students!

12 | going virtual | history of key club Service From Around the World | 10 | Leann Vo What’s Up Oxford Key Club! Before I begin, I would like to introduce myself to all the current and new suns! My name is Leann Vo and I will be serving as one of your three historians for the 2020-2021 term. I am an incoming sophomore and I’m super excited for this next term! Unfortunately, due to the current situation regarding COVID-19 we all SHOULD HAVE spent the beginning of the term indoors, however that did not stop Key Club from providing us with ways to serve.

going virtual

Since we are all confined to our homes, there are not many events for members to earn hours, however a great volunteer opportunity was provided. Coronavirus support for Kids in China was one of the only volunteer events that I got to participate in and it was a great experience. The situation in China regarding the outbreak of COVID-19 has many Chinese students curious about what is going on around the world, especially in the United States. By communicating on the QQ app, we are able to send them voice audios, asking them questions about what life is like in China. Through this experience, I have learned that life for them is very similar to us. Like them, school is now online only and they are required to wear a mask everywhere they go. Since they spend so much time at home many of them watch movies, listen to music, play sports, dance, etc to stay entertained. Communicating with them every Tuesday has become really fun especially since I am able to see their continuous improvement in English. All of them are really nice and send kind regards at the end of every session. It’s pretty unfortunate that our term started with us all cooped up in our homes, learning from a computer screen and scrolling through social media for hours a day. With everything online, it is much more difficult for members to earn hours like usual. It’s strange not seeing Hope Foods Distribution on the emails every week. Although we are all unsure of when we will be able to see each other in person again, staying positive and helping the community is always allowed.

history of key club

I’m excited to see what this new term will bring to our club. I can only hope for the best! Stay positive suns!

History of Key Club| 12 | Kenny Le Mussolini begins his dictatorship. The Great Gatsby is published. Mount Rushmore’s site is dedicated. All tremendously important historical events stemming from the year 1925. However, they fail to even compare against the preeminence of Sacramento High School Key Club’s formation. Fraternities of rich, white, and attractive students, whose only drives were to combat societal restrictions through alcohol, drugs, and competitive dating, ran rampant in the early 1920s. To subvert young men from fraternity culture, two Kiwanians hoped to operate a junior service club providing professional vocational guidance: now known as Key Club. Expanding on that original goal of guidance, Sacramento High School Key Club — a club still operating today — flourished by uniting the school with service related activities along with social congregations. History highlights our failures and our successes. Why do we do what we do? Why is Key Club a thing? Why are we in this club in the first place? It wasn’t formed on the basis of competition. It wasn’t formed as an end all be all for college applications or leadership positions. It was especially not formed to be a club where the literal number of hours a person serves becomes their monetary value. It was formed to be a wholesome environment: combating against the fraternity culture dominating the Roaring Twenties. Our mission statement is as follows: Key Club is an international, student-led organization that provides its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership. We must never forget that.

look on the bright side| 13

Flexibility is KEY| 12 | Helen Tran The month of April marked a full month of being at home with our loved ones rather than attending school each day. Although I think we were all a bit thrown off by the sudden changes brought by COVID-19, Key Club successfully adjusted to the changes accordingly. This flexibility is definitely something to be proud of, since it’s important to practice the commonly used phrase “Work with what you have”. I felt proud of Key Club for staying flexible and being able to uphold duties despite having the Internet as the main platform for communication. A large number of students joined OAKC’s first online general meeting, which made me happy because it showed that those students cared enough about Key Club to participate in the general meetings outside of school hours. Although we’re not able to go out and volunteer, I see students sacrificing their time through the service projects such as “Color a Smile” and “Writing Letters to Nursing Homes”. In just this past month, I can see that the passion of Key Clubbers radiates through all obstacles as we continue to positively impact our community. Although the start of the 2020-2021 term is not exactly what we expected, it’s off to a positive start. Officers are maximizing the responsibilities of their positions by getting creative. Key clubbers are still serving those hours through various means. The passion of Key Club International radiates through this confusing and difficult time, paving the way for a successful 2020-2021 term. Flexibility is KEY!

look on the bright side

Here for a Long Time not a Good Time| 11 | Claire Lee This month has been very challenging, especially as a project chair. The rough transition from volunteering weekly to trying to find ways we can support our community in our own respective homes is difficult, and it is hard to stay positive. Knowing that our own club and division are depending on us for hours put me under so much pressure, since I feel like I am not doing enough. I thought my partner and I were doing a fairly good job with the Chinese Coronavirus Support classes and the encouragement Letters to Nursing homes, but after finding about the total hours of other clubs, I feel very unmotivated. For the past two years, I’ve been looking at Key Club as a way to directly help our own communities and the ones that needed help the most, and this is the first time I’ve been worrying about our club’s hours. The reason might be because I am responsible for them, but it is heartbreaking to see that these days, the number of hours we have is more important than how we are impacting our community. Our motivation is to help the community in more effective ways, rather than just how many hours we have in total. I hope next month will give us a chance to shine, since we have always been the shining club of the month :D

14 | recognition

RECOGNITION Recognition HELEN TRAN

CLUB MEMBER OF THE MONTH

OXFORD ACADEMY 4TH

Shining club OF THE MONTH

TIFFANY ONG

DIV officer OF THE MONTH

helentran952@gmail.com PUBLICIST | KENNETH NGUYEN kennethnguyen6296@gmail.com HISTORIAN | RYAN DANG ryandang03@gmail.com HISTORIAN | LEANN VO lealinhkay@gmail.com

HISTORIAN | DEVANSHI KOTHARI devanshi3743@gmail.com TECH EDITOR | GIANG NGUYEN giangadonrawr@gmail.com

SEE YOU NEXT TIME