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The Official Alameda High Key Club Newsletter VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 DECEMBER 10, 2012

Alameda High - Division 2 - Region 9 Cali-Nev-Ha

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Inside This Issue

Historian Says What? …………..…..…….….…. page 2

A Word From Our Officers ………..…….….…………. 3

OMCA Gallery Sneak Peek ……………….....………. 6

Special Olympics Bowling Tournament……..….….. 8

Salvation Army Thanksgiving Luncheon ……..…..... 9

November DCM ………………...………….….…....… 13

March of Dimes ………..…..………..……....….…..… 14

UNICEF……….………………………………...……….... 15

Credits……………………..…….………….………….... 16

Food Faire! Nov 30

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Historian Says What?

Hey, everyone! As usual, it’s been a

lot of fun putting this issue together and

going to events to take pictures. Last week,

a member noticed that I didn’t have the

newsletter ready and it was already the first

week of the month. That made me really

happy/excited/proud to see that someone

actually takes notice of these things be-

cause I really do hope that everyone has as

much fun looking through this as I do.

The main focus of these newsletters are specifically for the members —

to catch up/recap on the events that have been going on in the past month

and to become aware of key (hah!) Key Club-related information. There is

so much about Key Club International (partnerships, Kiwanis, club struc-

ture, projects) that many of us probably do not know about and to become

aware that you are part of something so big is essential.

As for me, actually realizing I was apart of something monumental

like that motivated me to become more involved and educated.

And I hope it does the same for you.

Just me creeping on the taxi-

dermied (not a word) animals... Oh

wait, is that a turtle I see there?

- Danica

Everyone should come to the DCMs more! Ice skating was so

much fun. Look, I’m literally glowing with happiness! :)

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A Word From Our Officers

Hello, Key club members! My name is Jio and I am your Co-project chair with Tina, and as pro-ject chairs, our duty is to look for events around the community, some of which will be chosen for our future volunteering events.

Now, I have been in key club since junior year, and although I merely stumbled upon it at first (I was asking a friend of mine in key club for homework help), I am not at all regretful of be-ing dragged into the club. In fact, Key Club has actually been quite a rewarding experience for me.

Every event wherein we go to help out the community, is a satisfying chance not only to gain community service hours, but also to get out and do something new. It’s not too often when one gets the chance to learn from other cultures while participating in a certain cultural festival, to feel the exhilaration in being able to regularly help others, or just learning and interacting with other members of the club.

Being a current officer in my senior year, I hope that my partner Tina and I would be able to do our duties well as project managers so that we could all have a enriching and entertaining year in Key Club.

KEY CLUB— A REWARDING EXPERIENCE

- Jio Calderon, Co-Project Chair

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A Word From Our Officers

- Jay Zhang, treasurer

Hello Kiwis! My name is Jay and I am the treasurer for AHS Key Club. When I first joined Key Club as a freshman, my main intention was to just build up and decorate my college application. I initially believed that since colleges ex-pect me to participate in a variety of extracurricular activities in high school, I am required to join in a club. I was skeptical about its name and honestly thought that it was a club where keys are made and sent to kids in Africa–something along those lines—but, no, I was definitely wrong. Key Club is not a club where we make keys, but a club where we unlock and open doors.

I began to develop and formulate a different opinion. The more people I met, the more I was able to grow socially. The more the more events I attended, the more I felt like I was making a difference. Key Club is not only a club that benefits your college resume and supplies your required community service hours. It is a club that helps you develop your communication and leadership skills. It is a club that helps you find your values and enrich your character. It is a club that makes a huge difference in the community that we help to transform. After being in the club for a few years, I find that I have developed as a person and attained many important skills essential to life—thanks to Key Club.

KEY CLUB OPENS DOORS

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On November 11, a small group of Keyclubbers from Alameda High helped out at the Oakland Museum of Califor-nia for a sneak peek of their new gallery.

The purpose of the event was to allow the public to give feedback on the progress made so far of the Gallery of California Natural Sciences. Sticky notes were scattered throughout the gallery for critique and ideas of improvement. Ex-hibits in the gallery included displays of taxidermy and these featured a variety of animals. There were also several interac-tive activities to help raise awareness in ecology and the environment. Most of the attendees were satisfied with the gal-lery. ―It’s going to be great,‖ said a visitor on her way out.

Volunteers arrived there at around eleven o'clock and were quickly put to work, making gift bags for the guests. Two pencils and a pouch of Poppy flow-er seeds were placed in the middle of a piece of cloth. The cloth was folded to hold the gifts in place and pieces of string were tied around the folded cloth.

(Continued on page )

OMCA Gallery of California Natural

Sciences Sneak Peek Event

November 11 By Danica Liang

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When people started arriving, the volunteers were divided up and given different tasks. Danica Liang and Avery Kuang stood by the en-trance greeting people and holding the door. Andy Huang and Oscar Leung held up signs to help direct people to the right place. Meanwhile, Jason Liu, Brian Zhen, Brian Ye and Nick Wong stayed behind to finish making the gift bags. For the second shift, everyone swapped jobs.

Towards the end of the event, volunteers were given the chance to help draw images that would be featured in an animation for the exhibit. An animation would be created to depict the ―Future of Oakland‖ with drawings done by event attendees, children and volun-teers.

During the event, there were not many people who came. None-theless, the Keyclubbers had a lot of fun.

(Continued from page )

By Danica Liang

OMCA Gallery of California Natural

Sciences Sneak Peek Event

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Special Olympics Bowling Tournament

While the rain splattered on the ground outside, 80 Key Clubbers and Ki-wanis from around Alameda and Oakland gathered at the AMC Bowling Center on Saturday morning. We assisted and cheered on the special needs bowlers for their annual Bowling Tournament. Afterwards, some volunteers had fun bowling as well. The enthusiasm of the players was infectious; their cheers and exclama-tions of joy created a very energetic atmosphere for everyone there. I cheered loud-ly and clapped for my bowling lane. Each lane was composed of 6 players, and there would only be one winner. The winner of my lane scored over 400 points, which was more points than I would ever get.

I was amazed at their vitality; they were skilled bowlers who genuinely loved the competition, but most importantly the fun, from the tournament. Their hearty high-fives and shouts of encouragement towards every player showed me their teamwork and respect. The experience I had volunteering there taught me even more how those with special needs are not any different from other people. They have fun and enjoy life the same way we all do. They even bowl better than I ever can!

By Scarlett Wu November 18

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Salvation Army Thanksgiving Luncheon

The Alameda High School Key Club took part in serving free meals at the Oakland Salvation Army. We basically prepared a huge feast where eve-ryone could come to-

gether, eat, and make friends. There were tons of willing volunteers to help prepare and serve Thanks-giving meals that consisted of juicy turkey, soft gravy, potatoes, and fresh salad. There was even a donation of around ten pumpkin and apple pies for dessert! In addition, two musicians filled the room with lovely music to lighten up the mood even more. What I liked about the event was the amount of supportive and kind people and how each one participated to give everyone a pleasant Thanksgiving. Thinking back I wished I could have more conversations with the friendly people eating instead of getting caught up with work. Unfortunately, it only lasted a little af-ter noon, but next Thanksgiving, I would definitely return to help again.‖ - Aiden Sun

November 22

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Salvation Army Thanksgiving Luncheon

―Working for Salvation Army during Thanksgiving made me feel warm and fuzzy. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I was happy to help out others on a day that we should be thankful on. Not only did I see familiar faces, but I also made new friends through the event. It was great seeing so many volunteers work-ing together to accomplish one goal – serving others. Each of us had different tasks to do such as packing gifts, serving food or water, wrapping utensils, and making food trays. Although there were a lot of things going on at once, this event was well organized. My job was to place the salad and cranberry sauce onto the food trays and then hand it out to the servers. To my surprise, hundreds of people came to this event and we worked almost non-stop. Even though my legs were numb and my arms were sore after finishing the task, I felt good contrib-uting my part to our community and it made my Thanksgiving a day to be re-membered.‖ - Qiqi Wu

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Salvation Army Thanksgiving Luncheon

―The Thanksgiving event hosted by Salvation Army helped to make for a day more memorable than most. That day, a considerable amount of volunteers all came to Oakland to help pass out about 1,500 free Thanksgiving meals. The event lasted several hours and volunteers helped with setting up, cooking, serv-ing, and cleaning. The entire affair really embodied the spirit of Thanksgiving, and it really made for a fun event. Most volunteers began the day bundling soap with gift wrap, which was later handed out to those who came for a meal. After that sweatshop-like experi-ence, the volunteers were all divided into different shifts. Serving duty was quite enjoyable; one was really able to get around and talk with everyone whilst also bringing both food and joy to those who received said food. After several hours that seemed way too short in retrospect, the event sadly came to a close, and cleaning duty began. All in all, the event was quite enjoyable and was one of the few times one could have fun

working. The soap was quite nice too.‖ - Avery Kuang

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Salvation Army Thanksgiving Luncheon

―Working at Salvation Army was a great experience for me and I'm sure for many other people as well. Some jobs we had to do were serving the food to our guests, wrapping gifts to hand out, and trash du-ty. It was an enjoyable experi-ence because we got to cele-brate our Thanksgiving with the less fortunate of our socie-ty, and help them out on a day of thanks. I hope everyone else had as much of a blast as I did and I hope you all come to the next event on Christmas!‖

- Danny Wong

―During my experience as a volunteer at the Salvation Army Thanksgiving luncheon, I was given the opportunity to serve turkey to a great amount of peo-ple. The smile on their faces reminds me of how great volunteering is. I, myself, also had a magnificent time serving these people. And the ice cream was deli-cious!‖ - Jason Fan

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November DCM @ Dublin Ice Rink!

―At this event, we joined Key Clubbers from other schools in our division, Division 2, and had fun ice skating. We met other Key Clubbers and reunit-ed with friends from other schools. Along with the ice skating portion of this event, Charles Chu, our division’s lieutenant governor, held our monthly DCM. He and other divisional leaders discussed Key Club business. Overall, the event was really fun.‖ - Jennifer He

―I wasn’t planning on coming to this event initially, but I did and I am so glad that I did! I had so much fun. I think it was my se-cond time ice skating, but I can barely recall when I did it my first time (I was pretty young) so I kind of counted it as my first real time ice skating. Ice skating is pretty scary. And it hurts your feet (but hey, they were cute ice skates). But it was so much fun to be with everyone and the event had such a positive atmosphere, you couldn’t help but be happy. It was the perfect opportunity to bond with people you know! Because there was another division there besides D2, there were a ton of people. I was a wonderful way to spend a Friday night.‖ - Danica Liang

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March of Dimes

What is March of Dimes?

A non-profit organization created by Frank-

lin D. Roosevelt initially to fight against po-

lio, a disease that can leave people physically

disabled.

Its mission is to improve the health of moth-

ers and babies through the prevention of

birth defects, infant mortality, and prema-

ture births.

March of Dimes got its name when the organization used to have booths

where children were able to donate a dime for fundraising.

It is one of Key Club’s three partnerships

Since 1978, Key Club has helped to fundraise and raise awareness for March

of Dimes

The month of November is Prematurity Awareness Month and November 17th is World Prematurity Day with March of Dimes.

Random Facts:

1 in 8 babies are born premature.

The #1 cause of death in babies during

the first month of life is premature

birth.

Premature babies are at risk for lifelong

disabilities and other serious health

problems.

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Unicef: United Nations Children’s Fund

UNICEF is one of Key Club’s three service partners. Through October’s Trick-

or-Treat For UNICEF service opportunity, we will donate money to help chil-

dren in other parts of the world.

UNICEF is a fund created by the United Nations with the purpose of im-

proving the lives of children and mothers

Goal: to help children overcome poverty, violence, disease, discrimination,

and other problems that may interfere with a child’s success in life.

Have you signed the Zero Pledge yet?

For each person that signs, a packet of rehydration salts will be donated to

UNICEF. A packet is mixed with clean water and will help prevent a child’s suf-

fering from a deadly form of dehydration.

https://secure.unicefusa.org/site/Advocacy?

cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=214&utm_source=U5MR_TAFe_20120913&utm_medium=email&utm_ca

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Credits

A big thanks to everyone who helped con-

tribute to make this newsletter happen! :)

And thank you for reading this!

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Want to contribute next issue?

Contact Danica Liang (Historian) at Danicat_dog@yahoo.com!