Locksmith Volume 3 Issue 1

Stuyvesant High School’s Key Club

The Locksmith Caring—Our Way of Life

Volume 3, Issue 1 October 2007

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Summer Olympics for Urban Kids

2

Summer Olympics for Urban Kids

3

USACF Packing

4

Kumon

5

New Visions Garden

6

Key Club Essentials

7

From Our Web Committee

8

PICTURES!

9

Welcome to a New Key Club Year!

Dear Key Clubbers,

BOOMBA! Hey everybody, this is your ultra-cool Presidente, Richard Huang, and I would just like to welcome everybody back to school and kick off this Key Club year with a BANG! Your cabinet of 2007-2008 will work extremely hard to provide you guys with fun, exciting, and enjoyable events year-round. I just want everybody to know that Key Club is truly the most amazing club in Stuy =). Key Club is filled with enthusiastic kids who really want to give back to their community. We do this because we really care, and not for college credit or anything. Anybody who has been active in Key Club will say that this club is more than just gaining hours of community service, it’s the realization that helping others really makes you feel great inside. While in this club, everybody is guaranteed to meet new people and experience the great feeling of helping others. I truly love this club and I hope someday you all will feel the same. The cabinet and I will try our very best to make this club experience the best for first-time members and continue to make existing members love this club even more. So get ready everybody, for the GREATEST KEY CLUB YEAR OF YOUR LIFE! Woo hoo!!! =)

- Your caring President, Richard Huang

! !

A B M O O B H E Y !!!

Important Key Club Information!

The Cabinet Richard Huang (President) Sue Yee Chen (Vice President) Anthony Choi (Secretary) Olivia Hu (Treasurer) Ashley Cheng (Editor) Official Stuy Key Club E-mail stuykc@yahoo.com

The Board Jane Yang & Shadia Karim (Advocacy) Cissy Lin & Connie Liu (Art) Anne Tsay & Irene Kho (Fundraising)

Rachel Dekhterman & Judith Chow (New Projects) Jing W. Xiao & Snigdha Das (Public Relations)

Joanna Chen & Pei Xiong Liu (Locksmith)

Gavin Huang & Victor Ma (Web)

Send articles and pictures to: locksmith@stuykc.org Visit our website: stuykc.org

Summer Olympics We spent our first two hours setting up a variety of activities, including a football toss, an egg on spoon race, an egg toss, a Double Dutch competition, and a six-part relay filled with obstacles. The moment the first event started and representatives for the event were gathered from each school, the kids, a mixed crowd of children from 6 years of age to 12 years of age, started roaring. Chants of “PS 75” and “32!” rose up, signaling the start of the first annual Episcopal Social Service (ESS) Summer Olympics.

The first event involved kicking a ball into the goal as many times as possible within a minute. Highlights of the day included: a girl who, in the Double Dutch competition, did 92 consecutive jumps; the kids in the ridiculously hard Bogoo Bounce game that only managed one bounce before falling off (and they did it again and again); and the boy in the pie eating contest who dug his face into his pie and won first place.

Another great event was the Over Under game, which involved ten kids from each school in a line. The game involved each kid passing an absolutely soaked sponge over his or her head to the person in back until the sponge made its way to the last person, who squeezed the remaining water into a bucket. The sponge would then be passed back to the front, by between-the-legs transfers, and the process would start again. The game was hilarious to watch as the first kid would end up incredibly soaked.

When the last event ended, a few kids looked ready to cry. They had put in so much effort but they had still lost.

However, the cones of pink cotton candy, bags of freshly popped popcorn, and the dog tag-styled medals (very cool) and awards everyone received immediately brightened them up. We volunteers even got medals for helping out, a souvenir to remember the eventful and extremely loud day and all the cute kids. The Key Club event and the Summer Olympics ended with the “award ceremony,” amidst the camera flashes and the laughter of the children.

-Ashley Cheng Page 2 THE LOCKSMITH

Page 3

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1

2007 Children’s Olympics for Urban Kids The Children’s Olympics may have been one of the longest one-day events of the summer, but for me it was also one of the most enjoyable. The enjoyable part didn’t include waking up before dawn to commute well over an hour to the Bronx, or realizing that Prospect Park was not as far from Queens as I had originally thought, thus meaning I could have slept in quite a bit longer. No, the best part about this event was the focus of it—entertaining little kids and simultaneously being entertained by them.

The Key Clubbers’ tasks were to help out in setting up the event and to interact with, as well as supervise, the children participating in the event. The kids, who were elementary school students from three different schools, were part of a summer camp for economically disadvantaged children, and the Children’s Olympics celebrated the end of the camp, as well as the end of summer.

The Key Clubbers, including myself as project captain, attended the event, and I believe I voice the consensus when I say that we all had a great time. Some highlights of the event included pie eating contests (The kids’ faces looked hilarious afterwards. Check the website for photos and videos!), an egg toss, and a three-person relay race. What made the event truly wonderful was seeing the enthusiasm of the kids and seeing how much they appreciated the Children’s Olympics.

It made me feel proud to be a part of something that others really enjoyed, and this was only one of many events where this was true.

As it turned out, the event lasted about 8 hours, which is rather long for a Key Club event. However, those 8 hours were definitely some of the most fulfilling hours of my summer.

-Shayra Kamal

“THE KIDS’ FACES LOOKED HILARIOUS AFTERWARDS!”

It was only ten o’clock as I rounded the curve into the parking lot of Lincoln High School . Already there were about a dozen volunteers carrying boxes from a huge shipping container on one end of the lot to the other side. I signed my name on the log-in sheet, and got to work on the boxes. There were boxes of all shapes and sizes. They had anything ranging from books to toys to sports equipment to kitchenware. The cardboard boxes were all labeled with the names of the schools that had donated them. While I worked, I secretly counted how many I could find that were from Stuyvesant!

Before I knew it, it was nearly noon , and by that time, there were at least thirty volunteers in that lot. Though I was the only member of our Key Club there, there were so many other kids from other schools that I got to know. Everyone was chatting and having a good time. There was a lot of work to be done, unloading the container, and then loading it up again, but we stopped periodically to take a drink of the cold soda that was graciously offered to us. Soon, reporters from Channel 1 News showed up and interviewed the volunteers to find out more about the event. People seemed excited to get their chance to be on TV, if only for a few seconds!

At lunchtime, we were invited into the high school cafeteria. Quite a feast awaited us there. There were sandwiches as long as the lunchroom tables themselves, and salads, not to mention tons of different kinds of cookies! While we sat down and began to munch on our food, the organizers of the event wanted to say a few words to us. They thanked us for coming and told us what a difference we were making in the lives of thousands of children in Africa . He explained that each box we had touched was going to end up in a school in Zimbabwe , where they had never seen things like books and toys before.

They told us a story about a boy in a small town who would finally be able to go to school, because the organization had given him a pair of sneakers to wear in the snow.

As I looked around the cafeteria, I could see that this story had touched everyone.

What we were doing was truly magical.

After lunch, we got right back to work. When I was finally leaving the school, I wondered why nobody from our Key Club had showed up. Although my arms were sore for the following few days, going to that event was a great opportunity to make new friends, eat tons of cookies, and most importantly, touch the lives of so many people.

- Loren Oumarova

Page 4 THE LOCKSMITH

kumon kumon

By Vivian Tong Ever had to teach a child or listen to him or her read? It makes you want to rip out your hair sometimes, but the kids are just too darn cute! The Kumon event is basically composed of interactions between kids and the volunteers. However, it's not like the volunteers always have to work with kids. Checking their homework is a basic duty. Don't you just love marking answers right or wrong? It gives you a feeling of superiority.

I first participated in Kumon during the summer of my freshman year. We checked homework, listened to kids read, helped them correct mistakes, and even played with them. They were cute, really, but some of them were quite a handful. There was one child who insisted on irritating the other children. He made references to butts -- yes, with two T's. Then there was this other kid who thought it would be great to climb on me like I was a pole or something. They also said some weird stuff. Kids are amusing, and Kumon has tons of them. You’d be very entertained volunteering at Kumon.

But no, Kumon is not just about learning math and how to read. Once in a while, the kids get breaks and do Tai Chi. They would occasionally go on trips as well. We went to the park for a picnic once. There was also the time when we went bowling, and the time we went to eat at a buffet. See? It isn't just about math and reading. You can have fun (and possibly bond) with the kids as well.

What's great about this event is the fact that you can meet other volunteers as well.

Yeah, that might sound a bit corny, but it's true. I've met some people there who are cool. What's also cool is that Kumon is usually air conditioned, so you can escape the summer heat. You can go to Kumon and keep yourself cool. Kumon's great. Period.

11 -

1 2 1 12/6 = ?

7 12/ 1 = 1+2 2 = 3 1 =4 10X0=^ 1 R 1 3 1x8 6 = 9

=8 (2x4)-3 = 5 7X Page 5 THE LOCKSMITH

NS O I S I V W NE

GARDEN

Two years ago, I went to New Visions Garden for the first time. New Visions is a local garden run by a lady named Ms. Butler. I was late because I didn’t anticipate that it would take over an hour to get there. The garden is conveniently located at the tip of Brooklyn, in the middle of an intimidating neighborhood. I was tempted to get on the train and go back home, but I was already there.

Ms. Butler assigned us tasks once we got there. I had to paint a fence with Ashley. At first, we tried our best to avoid dripping the yellow paint all over the plants and ourselves. Soon, we learned that it was useless to try and wound up with paint on our pants, arms, shoes, and even our hair. We took a break from our hard work and Ms. Butler provided us with hot dogs, burgers, and drinks. It was more than we usually received from other events, but then again we did more real work at New Visions than we did at other events. When the day was over, all of us left the garden with paint on our skin and clothes, but we were content that we had done so much work and managed to have had fun at the same time. We also agreed that Ms. Butler was an admirable and entertaining lady and that we were eager to help her out again.

Throughout the summer, we had a number of weekends filled with gardening fun. Unlike other events where there is sometimes not enough work for everyone to do, New Visions keeps everyone occupied. We sawed down trees, de-thorned rose bushes, pulled weeds, pulled more weeds, shoveled and spread wood chips, and battled worms, snails, and bees. I once went home with 20 fresh mosquito bites and a sore back, but New Visions has been one of the most rewarding Key Club events I’ve been to.

-Sue Yee Chen

Page 6 THE LOCKSMITH

Key Club Essentials To prospective members: enclosed are the essentials of Key Club.

1. College isn’t everything. Like many, I originally joined Key Club with the adolescent idea this would be a great activity to wow colleges. Granted, it most likely will be an excellent extracurricular to impress schools, but that’s only a small part of the whole. Through Key Club you’ll meet an interesting variety of people, some who might even become your best friends (<3 Mech and Ratchet).

And while you have fun socializing, you’ll also be doing something truly significant. Which takes me to: 2. The joys of waking up at 5:30 AM on a weekend. I hope this won’t be too much of a turnoff, but there are quite a few events that require you to get up early and take the subway. While this may be a bit of a hassle, the events you go to will be amazing, as you get to see the great turnout of people who come for a day and show their support for all the right things. You might even get a genuine thank you, which is always nice to hear, not to mention the occasional cool looking pins and t-shirts. But if you’re still a little iffy about everything: 3. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You can’t stand young kids?

That’s fine; you don’t have to tutor them. You don’t like the phrase “Boomba!” ? That’s cool; you don’t have to respond to it (I personally cringe at the word). None of these examples make you any less of a Key Clubber. What truly makes you a member is that you are devoted enough to go out there and help your community, whether it be trafficking people or picking up litter in Chinatown (which is more fun than it sounds). After all, there’s no point in joining a service based club and not doing any service, is there? But most importantly: 4. Always have fun. Don’t think of doing this as a chore. You have to wait an hour before the walkers come by your station? Then go to the park and play with your friends a bit (oh the many times I’ve done that…). Bring a camera and take some pictures (which you can get published in the Locksmith). Just make sure to have fun. I can’t stress that enough.

- Michael Chu

Page 7 THE LOCKSMITH

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1

Page 8

We did it again. We changed our website. It is now www.stuykc.org. We devoted much of our summer to creating the new website; making it more practical, adding more features, keeping it organized, and making it attractive and appealing. We hope to substantially increase the number of regular visitors by offering free music on the site as bribes, choosing a cheerful blue background, sticking small jokes in certain places, and blatantly promoting it here, in this article. But the real point of the site is to keep club members, and others that are interested, informed. Having this website on the World Wide Web frees us from the small realm of the school and puts us out into the world.

Our site contains pages of random snippets of information from Wikipedia about Key Club, but the best way that anyone can learn about anything is through visuals. Photos and videos all speak more than words. If you look under “Multimedia”, you can find photos from most of our events and videos from the bigger events. We encourage everyone to visit the site to learn more about what our club does. There are photos and videos of Key Clubbers at walks, in gardens, at soup kitchens, and of course, cab members with pie in their faces.

From the photos and videos, you will see that Key Club is not just about community service. We hope that you learn from your experience with us not just about the value of volunteer work, but the satisfaction, the fun, and the friends that come with it. Sometimes the work is grueling. Sometimes there may be rain. But you’ll never see a Key Clubber who isn’t smiling.

Something else you can do at the site is checking your points! That’s right, just drop in anytime and click on “Points” and you will be taken to a simple, visually appealing list of members and their points. There is also a convenient side bar displaying upcoming Key Club events and snappy polls for visitors to answer. Never before has Stuyvesant Key Club had such a clean-cut, user-friendly website, and we are so excited to share it with you guys!

So remember these two things. That community service is not a chore; that it’s fun and worth the satisfaction you receive. And, visit our website.

-Gavin Huang

WW

G R O .

C K Y U T W. S

Page 8 THE LOCKSMITH

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VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1

HAVING FUN AT KEY CLUB READY, SET ……

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ions at New Vis k r o w t a er hard Key Clubb Garden.

Garbage Bag Race

at Key Club Picnic

.

Key Clubbers hard at rest at New Visions Garden (that’s the legendary Ms. Butler on the right).

THE LOCKSMITH