“I like that Key Club allows you to meet new people,” Jasaline Amaya (11) said. “And also, as I said before, get community service because community service looks great on college applications. And if you want to do good for your community, that’s another way you can do it. You don’t have to go somewhere without knowing what to do, in Key Club you can just show up, and then they give you some ideas on how to do good for your community and, you know, move on from there.” 

Key Club is a community service-based group that supports many different organizations in lots of noteworthy and distinct ways.

“So just this year, we raised funds to buy fleece and then we made 10, twin-sized, double-layered fleece blankets that we were going to give to the Gateway shelter for women, but we’ve had some connection problems with them, so we’re going to give them to Aurora warms the night,” Key Club coordinator Kristen Gurzick said. “We’re doing a product drive to help Ronald McDonald house, in case people don’t know [its] for families who have sick children who have to be at the hospital for an extended stay, and so these products will help them be able to have dinners and things they need.”

But the club’s benefits are not just the community service opportunities it provides for its members. 

“For one, people make a lot of friends in Key Club, and that’s always nice,” Gurzick said. “For another, we do a lot of leadership type skill building, we have conventions that kids get to go to for leadership. We have a District Convention, [and] people can hold offices at the district level. We’re part of the Rocky Mountain district and that involves like three different states, so you can be an officer at that level. And you can become an officer even at an international level with all the skill building we work at, which is pretty cool.” 

With there being so many benefits to joining, members have a wide range of reasons for their participation. 

“I decided to join the club because I feel like it would look great on my college application. It would provide community service so I could finish off with Avid with distinction,” Amaya said. 

The process of joining Key Club itself is extremely easy and the type of person the club is looking for is very diverse. 

“Okay, so we’re looking for someone who likes to help others not just in the school community, but in the local community and in the world community,” Gurzick said. “We’re looking for someone who has lots of ideas, someone who can think of different ways to help or find needs in the communities and will voice those who are part of us. We’re looking for people who want to lead people, who want to volunteer, and even just people who want to come and make friends,”