Cloverdale High School, 509 N Cloverdale Blvd. Cloverdale, CA 95425 (707) 894 -1900
KEY CLUB Single Service Project – Cloverdale H.S./Division 32/Region 15/CNH
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Project Need Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to a pounding on your door, unaware that the city that you love and call home is under siege by a ruthless fire storm. This fire storm had a name, The Tubbs Fire and it made its first appearance on October 8th, 2017. With the help of 40 mph winds, it spread as quickly as lightning, destroying anything and everything in its path, leaving all species of all shapes and sizes to fend for themselves. Many families left their homes that night, making their way through an impenetrable amount of smoke, and only carrying the clothes they had on their backs, not knowing the devastation and heartbreak that awaited them the next morning.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Need
BEFORE
In the span of a week, thousands of families made their way back to their homes to find a pile of ashes and debris. - -5,130 homes destroyed - -100,000 people forced out of their homes
Coffee Park, Santa Rosa
The destruction left behind was devastating.
- Memories and personal belongings gone forever
AFTER
- -36,000 acres destroyed - -43 lives lost - -53 people remain missing - 1,470 establishments destroyed
Coffee Park, Santa Rosa
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Need
A personal testimonial – It was at 2:00 a.m. on October 9th, when my family got a call from a family member asking for help at their ranch down in Santa Rosa, CA. Their ranch was home to multiple horses that people, who lived in urban areas paid to keep and raise. My family member asked us to ask around for any horse crates because the fires were spreading rapidly, and they needed to move the horses to safety. A few of our family members drove down to help and they were able to rescue a few horses, but in the end, many of the horses were set free with the hope that they’d make it out alive. We were later informed that some didn’t.
That night, families lost more than their homes, land and businesses. They lost a beloved pet or animal as well. With the loss of homes and personal belongings came the need for essentials like clothes, IDs, medication, baby formula, blankets, water, food and the list continued to escalate over time.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Need
FOOD As a club, we made the decision to focus on the most critical item that was needed, which we felt was food. Food is a necessity for everyone; man, woman and child alike need to eat to survive. Several statements and announcements were made by multiple food banks and pantries throughout the first few weeks after the fire. Yet, when we closely examined the need, our first decision was that our support would be given to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. We heard their plea for help and knew that their need was legitimate. We’ve volunteered at this facility in the past; and we were aware of the fact that their organization was the main source to which people were going to fulfill their food needs. As a club, we put all other projects aside and made the commitment to help by focusing on providing food for those who had lost their homes in those terrible days when the fires raged.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Need
The Redwood Empire Food Bank is a non-profit organization located in Sonoma County, serving communities starting from the southernmost regions of Sonoma County to the border of Oregon. They distribute fresh produce to anyone in need, and operate several programs designed to help end childhood hunger. Through their innovative and direct service programs, they can guarantee a county-wide emergency food system and a strong nutritional safety net.
Their county-wide emergency food system was put to the test on October 9th when Allison Goodwin, director of programs at Redwood Empire Food Bank released the following statement, “The Redwood Empire Food Bank works to end hunger in our community by making adequate nutrition assistance available and accessible to anyone in need of help. The devastating fires in our region have resulted in increased demand for food assistance. We launched Station 3990 in response to this need.”
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Project Plans The Cloverdale Key Club has fundraised or provided other kinds of support for many causes and organizations, but this cause was one of high priority. This tragedy happened right in our own backyard, and we witnessed the damage and devastation first-hand. Some of our own members were evacuated from their homes, because the fires were threatening, just over the hill from where they lived. Some of our Key Club friends from our division lost their homes! We knew we needed to do something to help; and we wasted no time in making plans for what to do. Starting on Monday, the 8th of October, school was cancelled. Our district had 6 teachers, including our Superintendent, who lost their homes the night before! So, we faced our first challenge‌our usual face-to-face communication system with our members, via a club meeting was not available to us! In fact, there was no school that entire week after the fires!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
But, we weren’t willing to wait indefinitely to provide help! So, here is what we did! We had already planned to hold a Tuesday evening committee meeting that week to discuss an on-going project. We notified our members, through text messages, that the meeting would still be held, but that we were going to switch the topic to a discussion of how we could help the fire victims. We revised the committee meeting agenda, and this is what we ended up discussing at that meeting!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
We all still managed to meet, even though the air was thick with smoke and ashes. Once at the meeting, we all made sure everyone was fine; and then we began the discussion. We switched all fundraising events we currently had planned for Save the Rain to instead benefit the fire victims. In that hour-and-a-half, we discussed so many ideas and possibilities to help our community and loved ones in need. The moment we left the meeting we set our plans into motion.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
We had one of our local Kiwanis members come to the meeting to speak with us about how we could help; and boy, did she have some good ideas. Julie Carter has been in Cloverdale Kiwanis Club for many years; and just like us, she loves to help those in need. She explained to us that she had been helping all night at the Cloverdale Evacuation Center located at the Cloverdale Citrus Fair Grounds. They were currently receiving people from all over Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties and the numbers were growing. At the time, they were currently catering to horses, pets, and many friends and family who were affected by the fire. She said that they would really appreciate our help with prepping and serving the food to the next night’s group of refugees and we gladly volunteered. (As it turned out, after getting organized, our help wasn’t needed. They closed down that evacuation center the next day!)
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
But, the fact that our help wasn’t needed for one set of plans, didn’t stop us from following through with our other scheduled activities.
So, what did we plan? This, and the following page contain the minutes from our committee meeting…
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan
Since, at that time, the fire was 0% contained, and the air quality kept getting worse throughout the week, most county schools closed, including ours. Even though we were unable to have a meeting, we still emailed the minutes from the Fire Relief Committee meeting to our members and sent them a text message to tell them to check their email. We also worked that week on our club newsletter; and in it we posted an article, written by our treasurer, Christina Cardenas, informing the members of the plans we had made for the project. On the next page is how the news article appeared in our newsletter. We actually devoted several pages of the newsletter to our fire relief activities. And, the newsletter was released to the members on the day they returned to school; so, the information it shared was opportune. We’ll share the other newsletter pages in our Public Awareness section of this document.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Plan Plan
Cloverdale CloverdaleHigh HighSchool School––The TheLove Loveininthe theAir Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Project Implementation On the 11th of October, some officers and members met together to participate in an extensive work session for the Fire Relief Project.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
We created posters that we would then put up around town, informing our community that we were collecting food donations at our local grocery stores to give to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. We paid to have some posters enlarged; and in all, we created 30 posters to distribute in the community.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
At that work session we wrote a news article for our local newspaper. October 11, 2017 Dear Editor, I am writing an urgent message to the Cloverdale community. The local Key Club has developed plans to help the fire victims in Sonoma County. These people around the county need our aid, and we are asking those of us who live in the Cloverdale community to provide support for the actions that Key Club wants to perform. We have already put food collection barrels in both Grocery Outlet and Ray’s Food Place. We regularly work with the Redwood Empire Food Bank, and because of that association, we received an important message from them, which stated, “We are in dire need of ready-to-eat, non-perishable foods that we can provide to the evacuation centers immediately”. So, the Food Bank needs all the help they can get. All food donated will be transferred by us to them. Sincerely, Tucker Morgan Key Club Cloverdale High School
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Single Service Award
We created labels for collection canisters, enough to distribute 30 canisters in businesses around town.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
We created a PowerPoint slide show to be presented to our Kiwanis Club on the very next day. See the following pages…
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Single Service Award
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air Cloverdale Goes Green
Implementation
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Continuing With Our Work Session
We made signs for the barrels we wanted to place in the local grocery stores.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Each barrel held both signs
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
We created a one-page flyer to hand to people entering the local grocery store, so they would know the best foods to purchase to put into the collection barrels.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Then, there was the sign we used at the donation table we set up in front of the grocery store.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
We created tickets for the Car Wash we planned to sponsor.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Here is the poster we made for advertising the Car Wash.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
This was the flyer we created to go on campus to advertise our class competition fundraiser.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Then, there were the labels for the collection jars that we planned to use for our campus fundraiser.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
The last project we did at that work session was implemented on the spot, because we had JUST received information from our Key Club Lt. Governor about an online fundraiser to help our division’s Kiwanis and Key Clubbers who had lost their homes! We added details about the fundraiser to the PowerPoint presentation for our Kiwanis Club.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
It was finally time to take non-preparatory action!
Bright and early, at 6:45 a.m. the next morning, we were at a Kiwanis meeting, ready to present our PowerPoint. We asked for their cooperation with our planned activities; and of course, they were willing to fully cooperate in every aspect of our project.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation Implementation
Directly after the Kiwanis meeting, we spent several hours, going from business to business around town, distributing both posters and collection containers.
CloverdaleHigh HighSchool School––The The Love the Cloverdale Love inin the AirAir
Implementation
For our series of fundraising activities to be a success, we knew that we’d have be on top of things. Most importantly, we’d have to get people interested and educated about the various projects we were undertaking. Our goal was to get student and community-wide involvement by spreading the word, and it was our good fortune that we were extremely successful.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Many businesses were very eager and happy to help. They let us set up posters and canisters in their stores, with no hesitation. They were so grateful that something was being done to help those in need; and they were happy to know that they could be a part of the movement to take action!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Throughout the month we had members stationed in front of Ray’s Food Place asking for both food and money donations. We informed the public that all the donations, whether it was money or food, would be going to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. People were ecstatic to learn about what we were doing and pleased to learn that there was something they could do to help.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
The first step in our campus drive was to give the teachers an over-view of what we had planned. Here is the note we put in their Faculty boxes.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Once school was back in session, and after we got both Principal and teacher approval, we chose the final list of members to personally go around campus and hand each teacher a donation canister for the cause, which, at the Principal’s request, we did during 5th period. We then gave a presentation to every class regarding the fundraiser. Below are the instructions and script we used for our presentations.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
In order to keep the student interest high, we really pushed the fundraising competition between teachers. It was called “Teacher vs. Teacher”; and in the end, there would be two winners. These would be the teacher with the most money, and the teacher with the most money per student. We would reward the winning teachers with pizza for all of their 6 periods of classes. We knew that this was going to be expensive, but it was worth it to us! The competition was on… and fiercer than ever! Our classroom presentations really helped to spark interest. And, of course, this was only a couple of weeks after the fires had occurred, and our student body was already knowledgeable about the cause.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
The campus drive lasted for one week. We collected the money from the canisters on a daily basis, and notified the student body, via posters and bulletin announcements about how the drive was going, and which classes were in the lead for the pizza party prize.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Cloverdale Kiwanis hosts an annual Vineyard Runs event, and we get runners from all over the states; and some even come from other nations! Kiwanis members from our area come down to help. Even the Kiwanis LTG came down to support the event! This year’s race was scheduled for two weekends after the fires. It was decided to give much of the profit from the race to the fire victims. In addition, our Key Clubbers were asked to assist the Kiwanis that day with a special table set up for runners to donate money and supplies to the victims.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Members helped from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Besides working at the fire donation table, they also helped set-up tables and chairs, serve breakfast after the runners finished their run, and helped guide runners on the course. They had a blast! Their help was instrumental in the success of the day for our Kiwanis Club; and that translated into a generous donation for the fire victims.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Implementation
Unfortunately, one of our pre-planned activities proved to be unsuccessful. It turned out to pour rain on the day we had planned our Car Wash. So, that event was cancelled.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Final Results
Our club may be small, but we are very passionate when it comes to fundraising and helping others. The Cloverdale Key Club is not afraid to take on a project and give it our all in order to see it succeed. We had so many excited and enthusiastic members ready to work non-stop on this project. We were persistent, but we knew when our community had reached its limits. Overall, our project was a huge success!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
Cloverdale High School Key Club Fire Relief Funds Balance Sheet - Kiwanis Account Beginning Balance
$ Date
Income Donations from in front of Ray's - 10-17 Donations from in front of Ray's - 10-26 Donations from CHS drive Fire Relief canisters from businesses Donations from CHS drive Fire Relief canisters from businesses Fire Relief canisters from businesses
19-Oct-17 26-Oct-17 26-Oct-17 26-Oct-17 27-Oct-17 27-Oct-17 31-Oct-17
Total:
-
Amount $ $ $ $ $ $ $
270.00 321.00 351.00 716.00 615.00 530.00 60.00
$
2,863.00
Project Financial Records Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
Asking for Donations at the Grocery Store
Besides the $591 raised for the cause, our members benefitted from this activity in the following ways:
• We learned to speak intelligently about a cause, when facing strangers in public!
• We learned to willingly donate our time to help those in need.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results Single Service Award
We ended up taking loads of groceries, (from the barrels in the stores), to the Food Bank on three separate occasions!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
The Kiwanis Vineyard Runs brought in $10,000 to be donated to the fire victims, and we were a part of helping that to happen! In addition, our efforts with the donation table on the day of the event also brought in a number of boxes of food, clothing and other supplies.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
The campaign on campus brought in a total of $966! With a student body size of approximately 400, that is an average of $2.40 per student! For teenagers in an economically depressed area, from a school that is in need of state funded basic aid for a huge portion of those attending the school, these are quite startling results!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
The community was also extremely generous!
• In two weeks, the community donated $1406 in the canisters found in businesses. • (This was in addition to the $591 already mentioned from people giving as they shopped; and it doesn’t include the 3 loads of foodstuffs found in the grocery store barrels.)
It’s important to note that our community has a population of approximately 8,000 people, including children! Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
As the various businesses and individuals rallied around this cause, there developed a real sense of community pride for what we were accomplishing!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
Our efforts to educate our Kiwanis about the GoFundMe account for our Kiwanis Family Division 32, and a second GoFundMe account for a former Cloverdale Key Clubber, resulted in donations amounting to approximately $1000 for victims actually known to us!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Results
A check for $2863 was written and donated to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. Below is the paperwork used to secure authorization to “cut” the check.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Public Awareness
The following actions brought public awareness in our community: 30 posters around town 30 collection canisters around town Collection barrels in grocery stores Members at table outside the grocery store Members at table at the Vineyard Runs O
w
motto!
In all instances, we identified our club as the sponsor of the project.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
The goals we set for our project weren’t just monetary; we wanted to make sure that the word got out about the source of support for the cause, and that people would gain awareness of the passion for doing good that is such a strong component of the nature of our club members. With such a small population in our town, those who live in Cloverdale share many bonds and ties to one another. Our close-knit community tends to show a great deal of enthusiasm for the Cloverdale Key Club, and it supports us in our endeavors. There are many times when our students who solicit help at the grocery store say that, “As soon as someone realizes it’s Key Club there, they decide to give to the cause!”
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
We did request that our local newspaper run a story about our successful project. However, the town editor did not consider the story newsworthy, and did not print it, despite the fact that we submitted an already formulated essay. But, the local staff writer for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat saw what we had written and submitted our article to that publication, which has a circulation of over 500,000 readers. An article, with a picture of us delivering the check to a Food Bank representative, appeared in a Sunday edition of the Press Democrat! Below is a picture we took as we presented the check at the Food Bank.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
Every time our members participated in a Fire Relief Project activity, we put pictures of their actions on our club website, which is viewable by the general public, as well as our club membership.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
We also have a Facebook page, and we made sure to put information and pictures on that page, as activities and events occurred.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
Campus awareness was generated when we did the fundraising drive, and then again, when we threw the pizza party for the winning classes. We put signs all over campus We generated daily bulletin announcements We gave classroom presentations When we finally tallied the results for the winning classes, it was a 3-way teacher tie! o That meant that we needed to throw a pizza party for 18 classes on campus – 3 teachers with each 6 classes! o When we figured out the numbers by using roll sheets generated by the office, we fed pizza to approximately 250 students!
We ended up being quite famous on campus!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
We also generated “gossip” throughout our tight-knit community because we ended up having to work out a deal with the local pizza parlor in order to be able to afford so many pies. They gave us all the pizza at their cost! News about their generosity spread fast!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
The pizza party, itself was a resounding success!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
Member awareness was originally fostered by use of in-depth reporting in our October club newsletter. (See the next 3 pages.)
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
There were five pages of the newsletter devoted to the project. They were the pages shown here, plus the one used earlier to demonstrate our planning process.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Public Awareness
The November newsletter also included a page about the project.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
CLOVERDALE HIGH SCHOOL K E Y C L U B Member Participation
Here are a few pictures of our members working hard at planning, preparing and following through on our numerous projects.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air Cloverdale Cloverdale Goes Goes Green Green
Member Participation
Time Spent Members spent a total of 128 hours on this project!
The average number of hours per member was:
4.57 Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air Cloverdale Goes Green
Member Participation
We had 93% member participation in at least one aspect of the project. Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
Member Participation
22 percent of the members participated to a significant degree, serving during the school break, when everyone else was relaxing without the pressure of school being in session. Their willingness to serve during that time frame just shows how much the project meant to them.
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air
In our October club newsletter, our President used this quote to accompany her President’s Message.
We’ve proven that our members paid attention to her advice!
Cloverdale High School – The Love in the Air Cloverdale Goes Green