July newsletter

All about ICON, the division and the Rocky Mountain district!

Key Club’s Motto: Caring-our way of life

Who am I? Hi! My name is Megan Curry and I’m incredibly honored to be your Lt.G this year! I’m a junior at Alamosa High School and have been a part of Key Club since freshman year. When I’m not doing things with Key Club, I love playing soccer and am in student council.

Fun fact about me: I’m the youngest in my class and will graduate when I’m 17

What is a Lieutenant Governor?

So you might be wondering, what even is an Lt.G? Well, I’m not a Key Club “God”, and I’m also not the president of Key Club (His name is Devin Sun by the way). What I do is connect your club and the rest of the clubs in division 5 and 18 to the Rocky Mountain District. I make sure that we’re all filling out the forms that we need to, getting credit for our work and making sure that we are all on the same page as the rest of the district. How do I do this? I will go to your club’s meetings occasionally and attend some of your service projects. I’ll also let you in on all the awesome causes that our district is supporting!

In addition, I’ll work with clubs to arrange division wide service projects and fundraisers.

Basically, I’m someone who is going to work with you guys to make sure that your voice is heard at the district level and make our division known!

If you guys ever need anything or have any ideas you want the rest of the division to know, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Email: rockymountainltg5@gmail.com Phone: (719)-580-4120

Throughout the US, Key Club is divided into districts. We are in the Rocky Mountain District, which includes Colorado, Wyoming and parts of Nebraska and New Mexico. All of the clubs in this division are in Colorado, except for Aztec which is in New Mexico.

Our cheer: R-O-C-K-Y, representing mile high, rocky, let’s go rocky, rocky mountain! X3 We are headed by Governor Aliza Mitchell, Secretary Olivia Becker, Treasurer Diana Antillion and Bulletin Editor Ciana Burroughs.

The International Board So these are the people who are essentially running the organization at the highest level.

They’re all very passionate about Key Club, and meeting them at ICON was really interesting!

President- Devin Sun VP- Mary Grace Lewis TrusteesAudrey Dilgarde Jessica Bae – our trustee

Kino-Paul Hurylington Nicole Montana Shinbee Park JoJo Saunders Jeongseok Suh Drew Valenti Clifford Young William Zhang Tiffany Hang

Here’s the group at the MLK Jr. Memorial while in Atlanta for ICON And down here at the June board meeting

SavannahBefore going to Atlanta for the convention, we toured around Savannah! This included going to the beach and walking around the Riverwalk on the 4 th of July and then taking a tour around the city. For the fans of Forrest Gump, we saw the bench he sits at in the movie! Overall, it’s a great bonding experience.

AtlantaThe first day we attended lots and lots of workshops, from how to pep up meetings and look professional, to CPR and how to be happy.

Candidates for international office came around during caucusing, and then in House of Delegates we voted for the candidates and on amendments to Key Club bylaws.

It was a lot of hard work, but was worth it because you knew that you were choosing the future leaders of Key Club. It was really amazing to know that you’re part of such a big organization, and that your vote really does matter: the first time we voted for vice president, there was an exact tie and we had to vote again!

What was my favorite part of ICON? It was definitely meeting people from other districts.

Everyone is very friendly and it’s not difficult to just walk up to someone and start a conversation.

Meeting people with the same passion as you is really great.

ICON wasn’t all work and no playwhen we weren’t in our heels, pencil skirts and suits, we were hanging out in shorts and our ICON t-shirts socializing with other districts and bonding.

Here we are dancing during opening session and representing our district!

So what will you be doing next year around ICON? Hint, hint, the answer is traveling with the rest of the district!

A meet and greet really lightened the mood and took away any nerves anyone had . . . An inflated obstacle course, photo booth, band and even a service project where we used donated t-shirts to make dog toys made the night one to remember. Two dances throughout the convention also made things extra fun.

As a district, we got to go sightseeing as well. This included a tour of CNN, going and trying tons of drinks at World of Coke and seeing the MLK Jr. Memorial.

Major Emphasis Projects Every month, I’ll be giving your clubs information on a specific charity that Key Club International emphasizes fundraising for. This month it is . . . ELIMINATE

What can you as a Key Clubber do to help?

The biggest way you can help is Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. Every Halloween, thousands of Key Clubbers trick-or-treat on Halloween, getting donations for ELIMINATE. Donations can also be collected before Halloween, and turned into advisors. So what will you be doing this Halloween?

After Halloween, our district will be focusing on AIDSPIRIT. Find out more about it in next month’s newsletter.

So what is Eliminate? It is a project created by the K-Family and UNICEF to eradicate maternal and neonatal tetanus, which kills around 49,000 newborns a year.

Without treatment, it has a fatality rate of 100%. The disease is very preventable, by a simple tetanus shot.

The problem is that in many developing countries, access to this shot is not often available. By fundraising for this project, we can get these life-saving shots to mothers and help prevent these tragic deaths.

Single Service Project A single service project is a project that you do once a year, usually on a single day. For example, the Alamosa Kiwanis club serves pancakes on Main Street every 4th of July.

Ideas can include holding a clothing drive at your school or doing a yearly school clean up with your club. These are events that although they might only be done once, they’ll make a difference in your community.

Tips for having a good single service project: -Get your school involved if you can: more people can make a project reach more people -Plan it out and let your Kiwanis club know what you’re doing; they might want to help you out!

-Find a cause that will really help your community. Different projects will be more effective in different areas, so plan according to your community’s needs!

Awards- what are they?

Every club can get awards and be recognized at the district and maybe even international level!

An easy one is the early bird dues award, which you get by paying your dues entirely by November 1st.

There are awards for recruitment posters, scrapbooks, best single service project, etc.

Talk to your advisor to get more information or head to

http://www.keyclub.org/contestsaw ards.aspx

Youth Opportunities Fund Maybe you’ve never heard of the YOF. Or maybe you’re like me and until recently, had no idea what it was. So . . . what is the Youth Opportunities Fund?

It’s really cool actually, and can help your club do a service project that wouldn’t be possible without financial aid.

The YOF is an endowment fund for Key Club International, held within Kiwanis International.

Your club can apply to receive a grant for a service project, ranging from $100-$2,000.

Applications are available beginning in July and must be received by October 15th. You can send them into Kiwanis International or mail them to yof@kiwanas.org What would you use the fund for? It’s most effective for projects that will continue going on in the next years. For example, starting a community garden that would continue on next year(s) could be something the YOF could be used on.

Questions? Contact me or your club advisor.

International convention really opened my eyes to how amazing Key Club is, and how much we as members have the potential to impact the world. My hope for our division this upcoming year is to realize that we are family and partners in making a difference.

If any of you have any questions or thoughts about the contents of this newsletter, don’t hesitate to contact me! My contact information is on page 2.

A quick trivia question: What is Key Club’s motto?

Answer that question when I see you in person and I might just have something for you (:

We might not make keys, but we can make a difference!