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STUY KEY CLUB 345 Chambers Street New York, NY 10282 USA

Official Newsletter of Stuyvesant High School Key Club Volume 4 SPECIAL INDUCTION ISSUE

Table of Contents AIDS Walk

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Briefing

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Tutoring

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End of the Year Checklist

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Farewell from Gavin

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Farewell form Victoria

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Farewell from Kenny

8

Farewell from Adeline

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Farewell from Victor

10

Reflections

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End

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The Locksmith INDUCTION ISSUE

Retirees and Inductees!!

Brought to you by the Locksmith Committee and Editor

UPCOMING EVENTS! Visit our calendar and sign-up for events on our website! STAY ACTIVE OVER THE SUMMER!!!

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AIDS Walk It’s 4AM and I’m Out to AIDS Walk

By Michelle Chen Ring! Ring! Its 4 AM and it's time to get up. It was May 17th, 2009, the day of the AIDS walk. The event started at 6:45 AM for volunteers and we had already received a shirt from the orientation on Tuesday. Getting to the event was a pain because of the lack of mass transit and delays. Victoria, Amy Jeshipio, Ken, and I, had to transfer three times!!! The day started out on the wrong foot but the MTA flaws did not stop us from going to the event. After a painstakingly long train ride, we reached the Bandshell at Central Park. Once we checked in, got coffee and some fat-free doughnuts (Yuck!), we waited at the 72nd Street entrance to be put into position. While Victoria, Amy, Jeshipio, and I got put into the same group, Xu Yu and Olivia were placed several blocks away.

Once we arrived at our stations, which took a while because we had to go back to pick up someone, we were left in the cold with our neon yellow hats. The weather didn’t help us at all, being windy and all.

Poles that were setup to keep people on the right side of the road were falling down. We did nothing for an hour since we were at the later half of the walk. Slowly, trickles of people started to come. We stopped them when cars had to pass but as more people came, it was hard to control the crowd. The crowd was rowdy and ignored what we said. Our job was trying to prevent people from getting run over but when we tried to stop them, they ignored us and kept going. When a dance crew came to practice, people started to listen to us. They had actually stopped but it was to the point where they were standing in the middle of the road. These group of people stopped traffic and it was worse than before. Eventually, we had to ask the dance crew to stop practicing so that the crowd could keep moving. Soon, the walk ended with a lot of trash on the floor. Amy, Victoria, and I got a lift to 76th Street while Olivia, Xu Yu, and Jeshipio ended us cleaning. After thousands or people walked past, there was a lot of trash left over but we got started and finished in no time.

Although this event wasn’t the best event, it was a learning experience. Some people are ignorant and like to avoid warning given by other people and as a volunteer you still have to try your best to get them to follow the rules. But this walk was for a good cause and just because some people are like that crowd, doesn’t mean that it should prevent you from volunteering for events such as these. It provides a new challenge to your skills as a leader and from these events you begin to turn into a person who the large crowd can no longer ignore.

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Briefing THE REVIEW

Community Gardens

River to River Festival

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HE FIRST COMMUNITY GARDEN IN THE United States was established by Europeans near the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the early 1700s. Three hundred years later, the garden is still running.

And in a society that is becoming more concerned with its environmental impact, community gardens like it are needed now more than ever. Community gardens allow members to grow their own food and others to donate what they have grown. They foster an environment of collaboration and openness that hippies could only dream of creating. The community garden movement was at its height in the 1970s in response to the ecological movements of the 60s. With the creation of various federal programs, the movement continued into the early 90s, as gardens began to spring up in urban areas plagued with crime and vandalism. The American Community Gardening Association was formed in 1979 to encourage the creation of more public gardens. Like public parks, community gardens are open to everyone and are often used for social gatherings, education and recreation and provide green space in urban communities. Unlike the traditional public parks, though, these gardens are not run by professional staff members but by volunteers and gardeners who live around them. The survival of a garden is dependent on the dedication of the people who work to preserve it. It is as much a political statement as it is a beautification effort.

Community gardens foster political empowerment, bringing different constituents together in a common cause. In a sense, they are the modern version of the Greek agora, the medieval town square or the New England commons. It is a place that inspires shared action.—BY GAVIN HUANG

Fruits of labor Gardens allow members of the community to plant their own food and often thrive on community and volunteer support.

PLANTING SEEDS 1700 The first community garden in the U.S. is formed in North Carolina.

1970 Community gardens begin to receive federal funding and support.

1976 The Union Square Greenmarket begins to provide regional farmers the opportunity to sell organic foods grown in local farms.

1978 The NYC Parks Department establishes the Green Thumb program to help create community gardens throughout the city.

MOTHER NATURE TOOK OUT its anger on the River to River Festival last year. You can’t stop her.

You can only be very frustrated like I was during the countless times I had to walk back to the subway after hearing, “Sorry boys, we cancelled it. It’s going to be raining hard soon”. One year has passed and those days remain fresh in my mind as I walked around the World Financial Center, looking for the volunteer coordinator I talked to for about an hour. Once the formalities of introduction were done, we began our task. Since it was a kickoff, we needed to help announce to the public the free summer-long River to River Festival. We handed out programs that detailed every event this summer. When the supply began to run low due to our quick pace, we handed out CDs and flyers until they restocked. Soon, the 12-hour festival kickoff began. The music was fantastic. It was tough when people walked past and ignored the fact that we were trying to give them something. We just moved on and gave the programs to people who were interested. The most effective method was to wait in front of the entrance and hand out programs there. It also helped to yell “SUMMER-LONG FREE EVENTS.” Eventually, people began to stay in the plaza and it was harder to find people who hadn’t received a copy. Many events are coming up. School will be out soon, so I recommend you get out and enjoy the festival.—BY JENSEN CHEONG

GO CONSIDER SKIP

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SEWARD LIBRARY TUTORING Tutoring

By Fannie Law If there’s anything I learned while tutoring at Seward Park Library in Manhattan, it’s that kids are very persistent.

Most of the time it is a good thing, because that shows me how much they’re willing to learn and how much they care about their academic performance. But other times, this aspect does make it difficult to try and steer them back towards math when they get sidetracked. However, regardless of which situation I’m put in, it is a rewarding experience when I can see them visibly improve each week and become more interested in the wide range of things they have yet to learn. Before this, I never realized just how much effort it takes to tutor. Granted, it does have its moments, but it is in fact quite challenging. I have to keep in mind what each person needs and work with them each individually. Throughout my experience with tutoring, I found that it’s not only important but crucial to devote your time to answering their questions and explaining how to do a certain problem when they don’t understand it. This helps me to not only understand the range of things that they learned in school but to help them progress even further in their studies.

“So, what have you been learning in school?” This was the way I greeted everyone when I came and each time they would immediately go into the things that they were having trouble with. It was only more confusing when concerned parents/grandparents began telling me what their child needed to learn. I tried to keep everything straight in my mind. Linda needed help with algebra problems. David had to work on square root problems. I needed to get Josh to at least the fourth-grade level in his multiplication tables. And there were three Amys: the first one had to focus on improving her long division, the second had to memorize different equations involving surface area, and the third wasn’t here for math help but wanted to learn something beyond her grade level. Just another typical day of tutoring.

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After giving each of the kids work to do and using one of the problems that Linda had as an explanation to do the rest, I turned my attention to the third Amy. Actually, I couldn’t remember seeing her before and I asked if she was new and what school she had come from. Can you imagine my surprise when she said that she came from Lab, my old middle school? Immediately we launched into a discussion about her teachers and the people there but as much as I wanted to find out what was going on at my old school, I directed the conversation to math. She was in the math team as well but she felt that the things she was learning in class weren’t challenging enough for her. Just for fun, I decided to teach her how to do quadratic equations. She picked it up in no time and again, I was surprised.

Every week I would move on to something new and Amy had no trouble understanding anything that I taught her. She even begged Kenny, math whiz/ secretary of our Key Club, to teach her calculus and stayed long after the two hours that we held our tutoring sessions. Even the other tutors crowded around when Kenny taught her what the centroid, orthocenter, etc. of a triangle was. And when Kenny wasn’t here, sometimes even I was unsure of what to teach her and eventually I ended up teaching her the same things I was learning in my own math class. I’ll admit it, I was a little proud of her. She was really smart and seemed to be interested in learning more about math than anyone I had ever met.

However, Amy wasn’t the only person I was especially proud of. There’s also Kevin, the little firstgrader I tutored. A few weeks had passed and he was still having trouble with subtraction. Every time I thought that he was finally getting it, he completely forgot how to do it in the next five minutes. Even so, I kept on coaching him and encouraging him. I helped him through each of the problems I gave him and afterwards, let him try to figure them out on his own by using what I had taught him. And then finally, he got one right. And the next one. And the one after that. It

SEWARD LIBRARY TUTORING [CONTINUED] might not seem like such a big accomplishment, but I can’t express how relived I was. I had doubted my ability to teach but I really felt that I had made a huge impact. Call it overexcitement, but I was really proud of him at that moment.

In fact, I guess I am proud of all of the kids that I tutor. Even if it’s only for a few hours, I really feel that I’m helping them to progress and become more interested in math. I see how they improve over time and convince myself that maybe I am doing something important; maybe I am actually helping them. I hope that I am guiding them towards academic improvement and that these aren’t just tutoring sessions to them, but an open door, another chance to improve. Math probably won’t become their best subject just yet, but I’m trying to make it happen each week.

Kevin’s moving on to subtracting with bigger numbers. And I’m planning to teach Amy basic trigonometry. I’m sure Linda will have something to ask me about on her homework and there will be a number of concerned parents looking over my shoulder again. Josh is already long past memorizing the multiplication tables and David will probably be ready for learning more about radical numbers. I guess I’m already looking forward to next week.

End of Year Checklist

By Sharif Mahfouz As the year approaches it’s end, see what you’ve accomplished this Key Club year. Your Locksmith committee chairs compiled a list of accomplishments you can have obtained throughout the year. For every check you have gotten, give yourself a point. At the end, you can see how much you’ve accomplished this year. Didn’t get so much done?

Don’t worry! There’s always next year!

Points Achieved 60 Points Achieved 600 Points Achieved 1500 Points Achieved 3000 Points Achieved 6000 Points Achieved OVER 9000 POINTS Events Participated in MSABC Participated in March of Dimes Participated in AIDS Walk Participated in at least one tutoring event Participated in at least one Divisional Participated in Pre-Induction Went to LTC Attended at least 8 meetings Committee Work Joined one or more committees Helped with the Art Scrapbook OR PR Poster (for LTC) Celebrated the scrapbook’s success by destroying it Written at least 1 Locksmith issue Written at least 3 Locksmith issues Written at least 5 Locksmith issues Received a Complimentary Card from the Editor Helped in at least 1 bake sale Helped in at least 3 bake sales Signed at least 1 advocacy letter Signed at least 3 advocacy letters

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FAREWELL FROM GAVIN Gavin Huang In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington warned the United States of foreign entanglements. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans of the increasing military-industrial complex. Bill Clinton reminded the nation to remain fiscally stable, clearly something we didn’t follow through with.

And what of my “farewell address”? What warning can I give to my fellow Americans…Key Clubbers?

What encroaching danger threatens our peace and freedom here at home…in school? Procrastination?

Laziness? Teachers? The increasingly oppressive administration? The kind of people Holden Caulfield himself would call phonies? What principles guide our lives as students? I have another year to find out.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the greatest U.S. president to ever walk the Earth on crutches, delivered a State of the Union Address to the Congress on January 6, 1941 that defined four basic liberties, Four Freedoms, every human in the world is fundamentally entitled to. These freedoms―freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear―form the foundation of a Great Society, a society free from poverty, from war, from oppression and depression, from recession and insurrection.

From these freedoms, we form a society where no man is without bread, where every man is a king, and no one wears a crown.

It’s not communism. It’s socialism―and we don’t even call it socialism. We call it government intervention. We call it taxpayer bailout. We call it giving a hand to a brother from another mother. We call it caring. I will add another freedom to Roosevelt’s list: freedom from phonies. Freedom from insincerity, freedom from ill will, freedom from forces which tend to undermine the institutions that we hold dear. Freedom from phonies.

And here comes the lecture on the unimportance of points, but here’s a twist. Here comes the lecture on the unimportance of points in the context of the great J.D. Salinger work (and perhaps J.D. Salinger’s only work), The Catcher in the Rye. While you sit in your chair, not listening to what the people up there have to say, while you wait for everything to be done so you can just get your certificate telling you you’ve done the 25-hour minimum, thinking about maybe the college you’re going to, there are real people with real problems. Forget your relationship woes, your 90 average, your oh-my-god-I-didn’t-get-intoAP-comp-sci woes. Because that poster child isn’t just a poster child. That’s a real child, and that’s a real photograph of someone real. Someone who is really suffering, really starving, hungry for food, hungry for a Great Society.

The Great Society began with Lyndon B. Johnson. The Great Society began with Medicare, then Medicaid. The Great Society began in Michigan.

It began in the halls and spilled out onto the campus and onto the floors of Congress. We will rise again.

The students shall rise again. And we will remember the year the passion died. The year life became a cycle of boredom and lull, when college was the only thing we cared about, when greed, lust, and the five other deadly sins triumphed. This will not be the year.

And you will not be the victim.

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FAREWELL FROM VICTORIA Victoria Tsang Key Club has been an enormous part of my entire high school career. I remember that when I first encountered Key Club it had been in the 8th grade. At that time, my sister had joined her high school’s Key Club. And from then on, I promised myself that I would join my future high school’s Key Club.

I don’t think there has been anything in my life (aside from my family) that has had as big of an impact on me as Key Club. Through Key Club I gained not only valuable leadership and communication skills but also unforgettable memories and the coolest friends ever imaginable.

And it was through Key Club that I became more connected with the community because I obtained a plethora of volunteer opportunities through the club. And because Key Club has given me so much, I had decided January of last year to give back to Key Club by going for the position of Vice President.

For a year now, I have gained an experience that will be with me for the rest of my life. I am truly grateful towards Key Club and my fellow cabinet members for such an awesome year. All the pelvic thrusts and the “UH”s and the Beaver Dance and meeting all the cool people from all over the state will be with me forever. And I will always remember all the crazy moments I have had this past year (including all the girl talks that happened late at night during DCON and LTC).

Whether it’s attending hour-long divisional meetings, trying to come up with an icebreaker for the meeting with Gavin, going to central park at 5 in the morning to going for Divisional Executive Assistant, I have never felt happier in my life. Whenever I know I’m about to do something related to Key Club I instantly go in what I call my Key Club mode (which is basically being cheerful, loud and hyper).

I’m going to miss Key Club, but luckily I still have another year before I leave for college :D And though it saddens me that the time has come, my term is now over and it is time for me to hand down my duties to the new cabinet who I know will do a fantastic job this coming service year. I wish them all the best of luck, and since I’ll still be here they can always find me if they have any questions. And to end this KC-styled…BOOMBA! With Lots of Love and Caring, Victoria Tsang

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FAREWELL FROM KENNY Kenny Yu Hey Key Clubbers! It’s been an awesome and very successful year, and I want to thank all of you for being so involved and enthusiastic about this club! I may not be graduating this year, but I am sad to step down as your secretary. I regret not getting to know all of you, and for those that I got to know this year through meetings and events, you guys have been the highlight of Key Club for me. Luckily, I have another year to get to know the rest of you!

I still remember the day that I joined Key Club—it was the second week of October almost three years ago. My friends and I entered the room slowly and nervously, unsure what Key Club was or why Stuy would have a club about keys. I remember seeing the cafeteria was full of people all running around talking about the latest events, but I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about then. But then the bell rang, people sat down, and the cabinet’s infectious smiles got everyone pumped and laughing as they portrayed their skit about “Boomba” in a bar. Courtney, the president, started talking about events, and Richard Huang, who you all remember as the president last year, talked about how he was volunteering at the New Visions Garden event when he broke his shovel. The members all laughed together, and I saw just how much of a family Key Club was. That was why I joined Key Club, and I hope that Key Club is as much a family to you as it is to me.

Thanks for an awesome year, and hopefully we’ll have an even better one!

-Kenny Yu

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FAREWELL FROM ADELINE Adeline Yeo Hey all!

It is a bittersweet feeling to say farewell to my year as treasurer. On the one hand, I will certainly miss collecting dues and organizing events; yet on the other hand, I know your new treasurer, Sarah Zhao, will do an AMAZING job for the 09-10 year. Through this past year and my role as Stuyvesant High School Key Club's treasurer, I have learned so much more about Key Club than I had ever expected to. I have learned how huge and influential Key Club is, both at the state level, and the international level.

Through Key Club, I have also met so many great people--at the District Convention and various events. It's such a great feeling to know that there are other people who are also passionate about the causes Key Club represents. And I think it's really awesome that we represent such positive, moral values at Stuyvesant High School. I remember going to Key Club meetings, and seeing the several fifty or so people who always show up, and it makes me really inspired to see such dedication. It is this commitment and moral shown by Key Club members that makes me such a proud member of this organization. And although I will not be Key Club's treasurer anymore, I will certainly be rooting on Sarah as well as the rest of the Cabinet of 09-10; I have no doubt that they will do a fantastic job.

Your 08-09 Treasurer, Adeline Yeo

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FAREWELL FROM VICTOR AWAR

Victor Ma This sentence has thirty-three letters. Being a Stuy student, you probably don’t believe me unless you count it yourself. Okay. However, I’m here to write a letter (this is a letter) to all of you.

Now let’s all hear about how we joined Key Club. I was at the club/pub fair freshman year and the Key Club table was in the middle of everything and the people at the table were the lou… most enthusiastic and then I joined and then I found out it was a community service club. Cool.

It would turn out to be one of the better choices in high school. From Courtney to Richard to Gavin to Bette, Key Club has been led by wonderful, capable and competent leaders. As web committee head and your previous editor, I’ll miss those fun times. Meeting new people at divisionals and district convention was an amazing part of the experience.

I hope my newsletters weren’t that bad. I’ll look back and reminisce at the uncountable times Gavin has called and yelled at me to either send out an email or finish the Locksmith. I remember the days when I was super, super dedicated waking up at 5:30 in the morning and heading out to Central Park. Some people (the second Huang) could never wake up early for events in the morning. I’ll also remember Yahoo mail’s buggy interface and the crappy spam filter that could never distinguish between spam and ham.

Serving on your 08-09 cabinet has been an honor. To be part of one of the world’s largest youth organizations and to be sponsored by generous Kiwanians. To take calls and help lost Key Clubbers at an event find their way. To organize some events and make the Sichuan earthquake donations a success.

My Key Club years have been amazing, and all you Key Clubbers have made it a lot of fun. I have no doubt that this year’s cabinet will do a superb job. Go Jensen! I’m saying farewell, but I’ll be sticking around for another year.

- Victor Ma

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Reflecting Over the Year ‘08-’09

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We’ll miss you guys!

I pledge, on my honor to uphold the objects of Key Club International, to build my home, school, and community, to serve my nation and god, and to combat all forces which tend to undermine these institutions.

A Small Word GOOD LUCK to ALL of our members, officers, and seniors!

Stay active over the summer!

Current Cab

See ya in September! ...and remember to send locksmith articles and pictures!

www.stuykc.org a Kiwanis-family member

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