District 7, Division 1S
Volume 2 // Issue 1
01 03 05 07 17 19
Hi North Crowley Key Club, I hope you all enjoyed this school year, summer is now here! Don't forget that key club is still active during the summer with our weekly Barnes and Noble story time every Saturday morning from 10 am -12 pm, if you find joy in reading to small children and building crafts with them please attend we need all the help we can get. Also,
Agape Meal will also be running through the summer every Thursday at Broadway Baptist church from 5:30 pm-7 pm, this ongoing event is very beneficial and exciting, feeding and conversing with the homeless is always a great experience, so please try to attend a couple of times during the summer. Accompanying at these events will definitely increase your service hours; therefore, stay in service throughout the summer. To help fundraise for our club, we will be having numerous car washes throughout the summer and Restaurant Nights, such as contacting specific restaurants and setting up an agreement that could help benefit the club and restaurant. I will keep everyone updated on dates, times, and locations. So please be prepared for mass texts, and social media notifications, such as Facebook, twitter or instagram.
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Our immediate past vice secretary,
having bake sales as a club to help
An Bui, now LTG for Division 1S will
fundraise for Childrens' Miracle Net-
definitely keep all members updat-
work, is what I believe will allow
ed via email on upcoming club so-
everyone to grow as a club and as
cials and conferences to gather
volunteers.
our division. As the new Key Club President, my goal is to create a strong bond within our club, be very communicative and active; I want all members to enjoy volunteering, and cre-
Being key club's past treasurer, I have acknowledged every idea, situation, or success our club has experience, which is why I believe in my capability of having a great, new key club year.
ating memories that could last for a
I hope you all have a great sum-
lifetime.
mer, school may be over but key
Key Club is and always has been one of my top priorities, and I will give 110% of my effort to develop an enduring, energetic and hearty club because having fun and helping out the community is my definition of Key Club. I plan on having more socials with the club, to get to know and have everyone feel comfortable around each other. Building posters, flyers, and even
club is always on! :) Yours in service,
— Demi Carrion Demi Carrion, North Crowley Key Club President
Hey there North Crowley Key Club! I hope you guys have had an amazing year! I’m super excited to be the new North Crowley Key Club editor! I can’t wait to prove myself with my very first newsletter. As an officer, I hope to help make Key Club the best that it can be.
I hope you guys love writing, because one of my goals is to have an article for every event we do this year! We do so much for our community, and it’s important that it gets recognized. What better way to do that than with an article in our newsletter, or maybe even the paper? As Editor, I hope to efficiently communicate with you while creating an aesthetically pleasing newsletter. I am honored that I got to take over Daisy’s position as Editor, and excited for her in becoming VicePresident!
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I’ve really enjoyed volunteering this year, and my personal goal for next year will be to attend more events, while still keeping my grades up and effectively serving as President of Latin Club and Computer Science club. I hope to see you all over the summer and in the club again next year! Yours in service,
— Lexi Cepak Lexi Cepak, North Crowley Key Club Editor
This month, North Crowley Key Club collected money for World Vision to help children in other countries. Together, we raised over $500. This money will help immediately assist people in need of food and to help train people in improved agricultural techniques to help put an end to world hunger altogether.
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n an early Saturday morning, North Crowley Key Club volunteered for the Run & Ride Chisholm Trail Marathon, on May 10th from 6 am -9am. Key Club was stationed on McPherson and Edwards Ranch Road where we were able to cheer for upcoming runners and bond all together.
Promptly at 6am we began setting up tables with hundreds of water and Gatorade cups to replenish the runners when they pass by. As soon as we were done filling up cups, we filled buckets with water and tossed tiny towels for the runners to wipe their sweat or get a little "cooled off" with cold, icy water on this warm day. Key Club wasn’t the only group volunteering; we had middle school and other high school students and staff helping with our station, so key clubbers were able to meet new people, have fun and volunteer like a big family. As key club president, this event made me excited to see what the future upcoming events hold for this new year of key club. Chisholm Trail, being the first event to be held for this new year, has given me a good idea of where I believe our club will be standing. Waking up at 5 am for the Run &
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Ride Chisholm Trail marathon was worth it. Everyone had such huge smiles on their faces, volunteers and runners alike. Key Clubbers stood on the outline of the road to hand out water, Gatorade, or other necessities the runners were craving, and we had so much fun helping them out. We all had fun volunteering and being a key club family by getting up early to help runners out for the sake of wanting to do so, and cheered them on until the last runner passed. Shouting, cheering, and laughing throughout this event and all the runners complimented our enthusiasm for their run which made us feel more motivated to keep cheering these runners on and helping them
not give up. "It was really well organized and the marathon was perfectly planned to fit the needs of the runners" stated Victor Amajor, general member of North Crowley Key Club. A couple of Kiwanis were also able to attend this marathon and chaperon on one of our stations, which made this event a lot more comfortable and exciting to see our Kiwanis and key clubbers be a part of something great together. The Run & Ride Chisholm Trail Marathon was a lot of fun and I'm happy that we were able to create key club memories and meet new people. Article Written by: Demi Carrion, President.
that so many students had volunteered to donate their blood willingly, considering that people like myself are afraid of needles and feel woozy just at the thought of having someone take my blood, or jab me with a needle. This gave me the opportunity to thank all of the students that decided to participate and be their personal blood drive cheerleader, since they’re all my heroes.
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arter BloodCare came to North Crowley High School on Tuesday, May 6. Carter BloodCare is a “not-for-protit” organization that is the primary provider of blood components and transfusion services for Texas health care facilities like children’s hospitals, transplant centers, major cancer centers, and central trauma centers. They operate an average of 25-30 blood drives on a daily basis in the community (Carter BloodCare). North Crowley Key Clubbers volunteered to help take consent forms and direct traffic in order to make things run more smoothly for Carter BloodCare.
It was a tiring day for all of us, but it the benefits were certainly worth it. This event, even if it was mostly paperwork for us, really impacted the community. A lot of students donated We gave up our class time and our lunch in order to ensure their blood, and according to Carter BloodCare, each donation can save that all students that had given three lives. Carter BloodCare provides blood got a pass back to class, over 330,000 units of the lifesaving and that all of their forms were blood to various places in Texas every filled out correctly and signed. We also made sure that all of the year, thanks to people like the students that attend North Crowley High School. students signed the sign-in sheets for attendance matters, I enjoyed getting to spend time and to assure that the seniors bonding with fellow my Key Club officwould all be able to get their red ers and friends. We also used this time tassels at graduation. to plan for the club and talk about our This was a rewarding experi- officer positions. Jordan, our Key Club’s Historian, for example, took this ence for me because I don’t weigh enough to give blood, but day as an opportunity to practice takstill wanted to be able to help out ing pictures for the newsletter and for her Historian duties. and support those who did. It made me feel good knowing
Article By: Lexi Cepak, Editor.
Improving their ability to work together as a team. Demi, in the picture to the left, had the task of cutting the brownies, and evidently took it very seriously. If one thing was for sure, it was that no one messed with Demi’s brownies! All of the hard work they put into baking delicious treats paid off two days later, at the 2014 Spring Training Conference when they finally got to enjoy them.
The two hours they spent flew by because they were working hard and having fun, although they were admittedly a little hungry after smelling fresh baked brownies for an extended period of time.
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n Thursday May 15 after school, our Key Club got together to bake brownies at North Crowley High School for Spring Training Conference. They did all of the baking themselves, adding just the right amount of sugar and coco to make the brownies taste delicious, while bonding and having fun. They spend two hours pouring, mixing, and baking while enjoying each other’s company and
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Could be by getting new ideas as to how to run their positions, while the members heard inspiring speeches about why they should want to take on a bigger role in Key Club and learn how to better benefit their community. This opportunity also allowed each club to engage in an activity with other Key Clubs and the Key Club organization, giving Key Clubbers the opportunity to meet new people and make more friends.
Besides the forums, there were also lots of games to play at Spring Training, like Trivia. There were fun prizes for winning the games, adding another layer of fun to the event.
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Spring Training Conference also had time devoted to talking about this year’s service project, which was giving cards to children in the hospitals to help brighten their days, since being in the hospital is never fun. n Saturday, May 17, the 2014 Spring Training Conference was held at Boswell High School.
Key Clubbers came dressed up in their finest and most festive Safari attire, like Daisy and Olivia depicted above, wearing their beige colored safari “animal hunter” attire. Everyone then went to forums for both officers and members aspiring to become officers. The officers learned how to be the best they
Spring Training Conference was not only an enjoyable day for all of those who attended, but a learning experience for everyone in the club.
Article By: Lexi Cepak, Editor.
children, their families, and their communities worldwide by tackling poverty and injustice (see page 8), that she was helping make a differtarting Thursday, May 23 ence and providing meals for chilat midnight, North Crow- dren in other countries so they ley Key Club began their thir- would no longer have to suffer the ty hour famine. After school, pain of starvation gave her comfort and the satisfaction in knowing that everyone met up at the club treasurer, Elias’ house. They children in underprivileged countries would get care and that their played games and did bondlives would be positively influenced ing activities while learning immediately, even though she waswhat it feels like to go withn’t able to care for them herself in out food for thirty hours. person.
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“Why starve yourself?,” you may ask. Children in less fortunate countries live far below the poverty line, and experience this kind of hunger every day. The Thirty Hour Famine presented Key Clubbers with the opportunity to put themselves in those children’s shoes.
It was a learning experience for Jordan because she had never gone without food for such an extended period of time, and had always been provided with three meals a day, unlike the children North Crowley Key Club raised money for.
Jordan enjoyed the activities and games that were played at the event, and the opportunity to learn Jordan Peyton, Historian more about the cause that she had of North Crowley Key Club raised money for, like how accordthought that the Thirty Hour ing to World Vision, one in eight Famine was an amazing event. It taught her and oth- people don’t have enough food to eat and how World Vision not only er club members what chilhelps with immediate food needs, dren in impoverished countries went through on a daily but also helps people in foreign countries to grow sustainable food basis. for agriculture so they won’t have Knowing that, by having to raised money for World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to helping
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starve in the future.
The next morning on Sunday, May 25, after the famine ended at 6:00 a.m. sharp, they all woke up to a wonderful breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and other assorted breakfast food, along with milk and other morning beverages. This was probably the best meal of some of their lives, and made them appreciate the fact that they had food to eat more than ever.
Article by: Jordan Peyton, Historian & Lexi Cepak, Editor.
rewarding too.” An interesting fact Crystal learned about snakes is that they’re very smooth and silky feeling, and don’t have the scaly “fish” texture that you might imagine. Additionally, many snakes only eat rats and other rodents, so they don’t have any reason to attack humans.
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orth Crowley Key Club got together on Sunday, May 3 to volunteer all day at Mayfest. At Mayfest, the club members had a fun time teaching children how to cast a line, using a plastic fish to practice reeling them in. You know what they say: “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day; if you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.” The kids at Mayfest will take the special skill they’ve learned with them for their entire lives, and it is sure to come in handy in a time of need. “It’s great that they can cast, but what does that even mean?” you might say to yourself if you’ve never been fishing before. Casting helps you send your bait to the next spot on the water where a fish might be swimming. The next step, according to the volunteers, would be to wait until the fish grabs the bait and is on your hook, then bring it safely back to the shore.
Evidently, this was an enjoyable learning experience for everyone that was involved, and the best part was that no real fish were harmed in the process. Other Key Clubbers, like Crystal Phan, were assigned to the reptile area. She had the opportunity to hold snakes, millipedes, and other “creepy crawlies” in order to educate children and adults alike about various creatures.
Crystal also had to deal with African Cockroaches. She reported that, unlike other bugs and roaches, they are both clean and sanitary, meaning that you can eat them. Whether you were a volunteer educating people in the art of learning how to fish, or teaching about strange animals, or even a child learning about either of these things, Mayfest was a wonderful experience for all of those who participated.
It was a new and horrifying experience for her, but it helped her be more comfortable around beings that weren’t your every day creatures. Not only did it help Crystal grow as a person, but it gave her a rewarding feeling of satisfaction when she got the opportunity to help others get over their fears, as well when they touched the animals for the first time, however, she also jokingly remarked that, “seeing them run away was Article By: Lexi Cepak, Editor
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n order to commemorate everyone who has served our country, on the Saturday before Memorial Day, North Crowley Key Clubbers ventured to Laurel Land Cemetery at 8 a.m. and helped the VFW prepare for the long day ahead of them by putting flags on the veterans’ graves.
This event was bittersweet, with the reminder that these people died for us, but the fact that we get to honor them every year makes it a more joyous event. They served us, so on Memorial day, we helped in serving them. Because of our Key Clubbers, the graves were all able to be decorated, and Memorial Day was able to be celebrated as usual, with the flags flown at half mast while people visited their loved ones, celebrating brave Americans who died serving their country in the military.
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I enjoyed having been assigned the Twister station because sometimes the children didn’t have anyone to play with, so Felipe and I took turns playing Twister with them and pretending to lose so that the children could get a prize. It was funny to see the kids twisting themselves up on the brightly colored, spray-painted dots on the grass, and it was nice to hear them giggle and laugh, because it was a sure sign that they were having a good time. This made it one of my favorite events, because I got to see the impact of what I was doing, and feel the happiness radiating off of the children I was helping to have a good time.
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n Saturday, June 31st, North Crowley Key Club, alongside other North Crowley clubs like National Honors Society and Computer Science Club, volunteered at J.A. Hargrave.’s Carnival.
Other people were assigned to games like “Animal Rescue” where children had to choose the right key out of a large box of keys and had three tries to open the door and save a stuffed animal from the PlushToy County Jail.
We arrived at 12:00 p.m., and immediately began setting up the games for the carnival. We carted giant dice, miniature chairs, bails of hay, a lollipop tree, and a cage full of stuffed animals, ard were done setting up in no time.
To the right of Felipe and I’s Twister station, Daniel and Jordan were assigned to a Dice game that was the shorter (and much larger) version of Yahtzee. The children looked like they were having Soon, we were each assigned a partner and a station. Fe- an amazing time rolling the giant dice and trying to lipe and I were assigned the Twister station, where two to four get them all to have the same number, even if it children had to follow our instructions as to what hand or foot was an almost impossible task. was to be on which color dot on the grass. Karen was assigned to the lollipop tree, where children were to choose a lollipop and, if it had a mark on the back, got a stuffed animal as a reward. Being the nice person that she is, she helped a lot of the kids and ended up giving out lots of stuffed animals, since there were more than enough to go around. We began cleanup when the Carnival ended, and had to drag everything back inside. None of the volunteers compained, however, because they gave us each some of the left over stuffed animals. However, the true reward wasn’t a piece of cloth filled with stuffing and decorated with sewn on facial features, but rather the feeling of joy and fulfillment of knowing that I made children happy . Article By: Lexi Cepak, Editor
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nce a month, North Crowley Key Club is responsible for taking care of the recycling at North Crowley High School. On the designated day, Friday, May 23 before and after school, Key Clubbers meet in Mrs. Laing, one of the Key Club advisors’ room. The club members work in an efficient manner by splitting up or getting into groups to get the job done.
They take all of the recycling from the classrooms that would normally just be thrown into the trash, and carry it all the way to the recycling bins outside of the school. Recycling is an important event that recurs every month because it saves the environment. Thousands of papers are able to be recycled, preventing more trees from having to be cut down every year. Panthers Recycle is not only about saving the environment, but about working with friends and socializing while helping the school and in turn, our community.
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North Crowley High School Key Club hopes to have many service projects this year in order to collect a fine amount of money for the Children’s Miracle Network. At previous board meetings, members discussed the many ideas we had to fundraise for the children and also specific ways in how these donations could be collected. One of the project ideas, brought to attention by our president, Demi, was having a Restaurant Night. Here, people can donate a percentage of their receipt to the cause. Places such as Cici’s Pizza and Rosa’s Cafe were considered. There was even thought towards asking a customer at the end of their order if they would be willing to donate to the Children’s Miracle Network. Another idea was mentioned by, Daisy, our club’s vice president. She explained that making bracelets to sell might work out just as well.
Since we wanted to keep our budget low, time was taken to discuss possible ways to save money. Mrs. Laing, one of our club’s advisors, informed us of a craft store called Jo-Ann. There, we could buy the necessary supplies for the bracelets at a low price and with helpful coupons. At another meeting, Elias, our club’s treasure, mentioned having a bake sale in the front of a store. If given the suggested store’s approval, it was deemed an excellent idea. Everyone took great consideration into the planning. Small stores such as CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, and Albertsons were documented. We assumed small places such as those would attract more people and be easier to get permission to sell in front. We even gave thought towards the ongoing events we’ve carried on throughout the year, such as Barnes and Noble. It was suggested that since our story time and activities there involve children, we could possibly sell some baked goods to the parents that come along. Jordan, our club’s historian, proposed another way to fundraise. She announced that we could make posters, ads, and flyers to paste around the school and hand out to fellow classmates and teachers. Hopefully, the posters and flyers will show those who receive them the truly wonderful nature of what the Children’s Miracle Network does and encourage them to donate. The ideas mentioned above were just the beginning of many more to come. We enjoyed designing and planning for the Children’s Miracle Network donation project. We are eager to raise as much money as possible and can’t wait to get started!
Friday, June 6—
Sunday, June 8—
Panthers Recycle: 8:00-8:30 a.m. & 4:00-4:30 p.m. & Cats Game: 7:00 p.m. at LeGrave Field
Ice Cream Social: 3:00-5:00 p.m. at Broadway Baptist Church
Barnes & Noble Story Time:
Every Saturday from 10:00 a.m.— 12:00 p.m. At Barnes & Noble (;
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Agape meal:
Every Thursday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. At Broadway Baptist Church
June 2014 Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
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4 AGAPE 5
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ICE CREAM SOCIAL
Fri
Sat
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B&N 7
11 AGAPE 12
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B&N 14
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18 AGAPE 19
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B&N 21
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25 AGAPE 26
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B&N 28
CATS GAME & Recycling
President, Demi Carrion: nckcpresident@gmail.com
Vice-President, Daisy Doan: daisy202@rocketmail.com
Editor, Lexi Cepak: nckc.editor@gmail.com
Historian, Jordan Peyton: nchs.keyclubhistorian@gmail.com
Secretary, Olivia Courtney: nckc.secretary@gmail.com
Vice-Secretary, Karen Duarte-Escovar: nckc.vicesecretary@gmail.com
Treasurer, Elias Laura: nckc.treasurer@gmail.com
Parliamentarian, Bernice Ogbondah nckc.parliamentarian@gmail.com