Many MVHS students are involved in volunteering, and numerous clubs on campus provide community service opportunities. As a part of the Division 34 South Penguins, Key Club is the oldest service club, which has been established around nationally for 92 years.
Throughout his years of being an active club member, vice president and senior Kevin Tan reflects on his initial thoughts.
“When I came to [MVHS], I just thought that it was all academics,” Tan said, “but [in Key Club], we always have a good time. We are actually very involved with the community and sociable with everyone as well. I think that Key Club emphasizes […]that.”
According to Tan, Key Club had not been as active in previous years because its senior officers were busy with testing and college applications. However, this year’s officer team is finding effective ways to increase publicity and the amount of members.
“We definitely had to quickly promote a lot of different events, draw in a lot more different members and last year, we just had sheets and sheets of sign ups which was really good,” Tan said. “What we’ve done is basically promote better, have more activities so people can actually volunteer and be active in the club.”
Public relations officer senior Seko Li explains that one of the many goals that Key Club has in mind to achieve by the end of this year is to have more events and increase the number of active members.
“[Key Club] honestly didn’t seem that […] proactive in getting members and maintaining them,” Li said. “But this year, that’s one of our goals:just having more events, reaching out to more members,having a reason for them to stay and not being disorganized.”
There were several trends regarding member participation that Li and Tan both noticed throughout the course of being actively involved in Key Club. A lot of students tend to distant themselves from being a volunteer in the club because of their busy schedules. Li finds that there is a negative correlation between time and member dedication. Towards the end of the year, students frequently taper off, creating an issue in maintaining active memberships in Key Club.
However, Tan believes that finding students who have more free time will keep Key Club active.
“[I would] target the freshmen because they have a lot less work than everyone else does,” Tan said, “Trying getting them active and giving more to the club is definitely our main goal.”
Key Club advisor Pete Pelkey agrees that the club has not been as active last year as they were in the last two years, therefore he explains the importance of keeping Key Club active.
“You go out and you do things for the community,” Pelkey said, “It’s fun to do things for people and it’s a nice thing to do.”
Officers hope that Key Club will give freshmen new perspectives regarding volunteering works and to let others know that the club plans on getting more events, which is a change from previous years.
“[Volunteering is] a great way to meet people,” Tan said. “Seeing people smile and have a good time is like everything to me. So knowing that I’m contributing to that makes me very content with what I’m doing. Being able to participate in their lives means a lot to me, so I think that’s what I got most out of it.”
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