Reynolds

As part of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the RHS Key Club joined the festivities by helping local families in need through the Good Shepherd Center in Greenville.  On December 14-16, Reynolds Key Clubbers lent a helping hand by filling plastic bags with clothing, school supplies, toys, shoes, games and other items for the children of needy families in our area.  Throughout each day, families came to the center to register their family and listing children's ages, sizes and interests.  Key Clubbers then assisted Good Shepherd adult volunteers to fill the bags for each family.  Members worked in 2-3 hour shifts each day with four members on each shift.  The staff of the Good Shepherd Center greatly appreciated the help of the Key Club members and members enjoyed helping with this project and making the holiday special for many area children.  We look forward to participating again next year and have even come up with some ideas for additional service by working on this project.

Souderton Area

Most know that the winter season is a time for selfless giving, but this year was especially magical at the Souderton Area High School.  In our supportive community, everyone is willing to help any families that are in need.  One of the charity events that occurred this December was a food drive that provided Souderton families delicious holiday meals.  Another event was a money collection to buy gift cards for the families.

In addition to the food drive and money collection, the Key Club put together a gift drive to deliver holiday joy to Souderton students.  The school nurses provide the club with a numbered list of the ages and genders of the kids, and members volunteer to buy gifts for one or more of the numbers.  The ages of the boys and girls ranged from four months to nineteen years old and no information was revealed that would distinguish them.  All of the families being helped by the gift drive had at least one child in our school and presents were collected for them and their siblings.  Thanks to our generous club members, all of the numbers were quickly taken.  This was particularly significant because this year’s list of 54 kids was longer than last year’s; there were even some extra presents when all was said and done!  On the fifteenth of December, the last of the wrapped gifts were collected by the Souderton Key Club’s Advisor, Alison Lindsay.  Fortunately, the drive was a great success!

Although the event exceeded all expectations, it could not have been executed successfully without the leadership of Key Club Treasurer, Megan Miller.  She competently took it upon herself to take charge of the operation.  Megan made sure that all of the numbers on the list were taken and then followed up by periodically reminding each member to bring in their gifts.  Finally, she hand delivered the fruits of her labor to the nurse’s office for distribution.  The Souderton Key Club is extremely lucky to have such a dedicated and involved officer.

The families helped by the winter charity events repaid the school’s compassion with gratitude.  One of the families wrote back: “Thank you so much for the wonderful outpouring of goodwill and for helping us get through the holiday season with your thoughtful donations of food and gifts.”  This Key Club is incredibly proud to have made such a wonderful impact on the community!

Bradford

On December 19th, Key club sponsored an annual Christmas dinner at the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Members of our Key Club go and purchase food to make at the YWCA like Macaroni and cheese, cookies, hot dogs, assortments of vegetables, and chips to turn into a delicious meal for children and their mothers who can’t afford to have a nice Christmas dinner for their kids during the holidays. When we arrive at YWCA, everybody gets to work to make it a very special night for the kids. Some members cooked and prepared the meal. Some of the members cleaned tare where dinner was going to be placed and set the table. We even conjoined with our Art Club! Those members would paint winter or holiday themed scenes like a Christmas tree or a snowman on the windows to make the place look a ton more festive! Two of our members entertained the dinner with outstanding holiday themed duets on their saxophones. We even had a surprise visit from a very special jolly old man, Santa Clause! To make the event even more magical for the kids, we had one of our members dress up as Santa Clause, and he had the children sit on his lap and be asked what they wanted for Christmas. Santa additionally gave some presents our club donated to the kids to make this Christmas extra special! I think this is one of the most heartwarming events the Bradford Key Club does annually, and it always ends up as a proud and rewarding experience.

North Allegheny Intermediate

Every year, during the holiday season, the North Allegheny Intermediate High School holds its annual ‘Santa’s Stocking.’  This program donates gifts to underprivileged children that ordinarily wouldn’t receive gifts for Christmas.  Through this program, we are able to give these children the joy of opening their very own gifts Christmas day.  We assign each homeroom one or two children, and students bring in toys and stocking stuffers and then spend a class wrapping them for the kids.  Each year, the parents that come pick the toys up for the children are awestruck, and so thankful.

   This year, the NAI key club adopted our own two children, a young girl and boy.  We reached out to the entire key club asking for monetary donations, and then went shopping at ToysRUs for the kids.  We bought the girl a brand new bike, helmet, Bratz dolls, and coat.  We bought the boy plenty of new action figures, and a new winter coat, hat, and mittens.

 All in all, the Santa Stocking project at NAI was a huge success, and our key club was happy to bring Christmas to two children.                               

Redland

During the month of December, the Red Land Key Club's main project was our "Cookie Caper." Our school has a Cookie Caper event every winter, where hundreds of cookies are baked or donated and then given to students and faculty members who are going through a tough time. The goal of this project is to brighten up their holiday and make them feel better. One day in December, many members stayed after school for several hours to bake cookies. Our Key Club alone baked and decorated over 77 dozen cookies, and they were handed out to over 100 students and faculty members! Also, Key Club members who were not able to participate in the cookie- baking event after school helped out by donating baking supplies or baking cookies on their own. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Although only in school for three weeks in December, the Red Land Key Club kept busy with multiple service projects. In the beginning of the month, the Key Club helped the National Honor Society students wrap gifts and raise money at Barnes ‘n Noble. The money goes to the Red Land talent show’s donation to a local charity. Key Club members also helped wrap gifts at a local mall, as well as help at the local elementary schools’ Santa Shops and collect items to donate to a Harrisburg Santa Shop. Holiday cards were also made and sent to a local nursing home. All of these small events were done in conjunction with Key Club’s bigger event of December. The Key Club helped with an event called Cookie Caper. This event, organized by our school librarian, provides students and staff at Red Land who have had a rough time recently either at school or at home with a little bit of holiday cheer. These people receive holiday cookies to try and brighten their day. To help with this, the Red Land Key Club baked around 77 dozen cookies. Overall, Cookie Caper was able to donate a plate of cookies to around 100 people this year. December turned out to be a shortened, yet successful month for the Red Land Key Club.

Blackhawk

This month was a very busy month for BHS KEY Club. Our Head Start gift drive is by far our largest service project throughout the year. Every Christmas, we take the students of our district's Head Start class, and we buy clothes and toys for each student. Almost all of the families involved are less fortunate, and are often not able to provide at Christmas time. For every child, we have two "tags", one for clothes, and one for toys. We ask each volunteer to purchase twenty to twenty-five dollars worth of items for each tag that they receive. In this way, we attempt to disperse any financial hardships on members. We also are able to drum up a great deal of support from teachers within the district, and the family members of Club members. Along with the Head Start students, we are anonymously approached by members of the community that request for children to be part of the drive. This year, we provided Christmas presents for over 55 children in our area, totalling almost $2,500. When delivering the gifts, several members travel to one of our two elementary schools with all of the presents loaded into large black garbage bags. Passing for garbage or something unimportant, the students are none the wiser when we distribute the bags to the parents, and Santa is able to remain in their lives. Along with each bag, we pass out an envelope to every student's parent that contains various coupons and vouchers that we receive as donations from businesses in the community. The project is long and arduous, but it is an absolute joy to know that we, as a Club, are able to provide for children that would have nothing at Christmas without our help. It teaches us the true meaning of giving, and allows us to keep the spirit of Christmas alive.

Stroudsburg

This month, our club agreed that one of our main goals was to focus much of our attention and service to helping the Toys for Tots charity organization.  Our Key Club worked this year in conjunction with Stroudsmoor Country Inn to provide a free tree lighting event for the community on December 4th, 2011.  The event benefitted Toys for Tots.  Members of our club volunteered in shifts all day, from 11 am to 7 pm, by dressing in costumes to entertain the children at the event.  Other members, also in costume, served hot chocolate, and other refreshments.  Two club members, Tuyet Bang and Shantel Burton worked as our club's liasons with Stroudsmoor, and assisted in helping to plan the event.  Members attended a costume fitting at the end of November, and then a television taping on a local new station early one morning to help to get ready for, and advertise the event.  In addition to helping with the event, our officers and members presented the $300.00 that we had raised for Toys for Tots to the charity's representative, John Dickson.  Earlier this month, on the 2nd of December, we held a school wide toy drive for Toys for Tots.  Our school has a dress code, but students who brought in a toy for our collection were able to wear sweatpants.  Our drive was called "Sweats for Santa," and we collected a total of 485 toys.  These toys were also presented to John Dickson and Toys for Tots at the Tree Lighting ceremony.  The final step in our Toys for Tots focus was helping with the annual Toys for Tots toy sorting, which took place at Tobyhanna Army Depot on December 17th.  33 of our members, as well as our advisor helped to sort the toys into age and gender groups, and then went "shopping" for families in the area in need. Members were given the ages and genders of children in each family, and had to choose and gather toys that were fitting to that child.  Our members all agreed that this was a great way to help children in need during the holiday season.  After an article about our efforts was published in our local paper, we recieved a comment from Johanna Weaver, saying that "How wonderful that our students have gotten public recognition for their community philanthropy.  I wonder if this is again a year when they should be recommended for the community philanthropy award? Congratulations to all the Kiwanis advisors and faculty who support their efforts!"

Hanover Area

In the month of December, our Key Club baked over 200 red velvet cupcakes.  Many members of the Key Club sold these at all the lunch periods to the students and teachers. We raised about $100 for Relay for Life. Relay for Life is an event that our club participated in last year. One of our members received information from her track coach about it. The event is twenty-four hours long. Basically, several people from a group have to walk or run on a track for a full day. You can have as many people on the track at one time as possible. However, at least one person must always be on the track. Each group pays a fee to join in the event, so last year, we had to think of fundraisers and follow through with them quickly. This year, we started early, so we could get a headstart on the fundraising for this event in June. All the money raised from Relay for Life goes to the American Cancer Society. Last year, the Key Club had 10 wonderful members who participated. They all really enjoyed Relay for Life and thought it would be a great idea to do it again for this year. We look forward to doing this event as long as we can in the future.

Elizabethtown

One of the Key Club events in December that really brought volunteers together was over the course of three days where groups of about six Key Clubbers helped the Central PA Food Bank. It was a supplement to the food drive that we had held within our school throughout the month. After raising at least 200 items for the food bank, the club wanted to do even more to aid the food bank in their endeavors to feed the hungry. We set up Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to about 8 o'clock, consecutive days, where Key Clubbers could carpool and drive to the Central PA Food Bank and lend a hand. While there one group packed boxes with canned goods, and then even packed boxes chalk full of chips and cookies and candy, all to send out to hungry people all over the area. One of the evenings, a volunteer found a set of clip in feathers for hair as a donation, and we have since been wondering what who could really use that from a food bank… But nonetheless every group had a blast and even got to work side by side with other volunteers throughout the central Pennsylvania area. Volunteering beside someone you have never met before has given members a new appreciation for service and has allowed many to come out of their shells. It is good to know that people are always willing to help others. Coming together for a common cause like fighting hunger has provided this Key Club with more opportunities for service; we plan on doing so much more with the Central PA Food Bank in the coming months.