Breanna Huynh
Feature Editor
A look inside Key Club at Mission Viejo High School.
The cheers and voices of thousands thundered through the stadium as students all over California gathered together to celebrate their annual Fall Rally South to kick off the new school year.
The Fall Rally is held by the CNH (California-Nevada-Hawaii) District where each division (which for our school is Division 4 South) can show off their spirit and passion for service as well as raising money for the Pediatric Trauma Program.
The Pediatric Trauma Program (PTP) is Mission’s Key Club primary charity who aims to prevent and improve the outcomes of children who have experienced traumatic events. While most proceeds of money raised by Key Club will go to the PTP, they have donated to other organizations such as UNICEF, South County Outreach Food Bank, and Toys for Tots.
Throughout the year, they do various projects and activities including food drives, bottle drives, collecting clothes, and being able to participate in the annual Rose Parade where members were able to help set up and create floats that would be featured on television.
While Key Club hosts a plethora of events, Stephanie Tran, a senior and president of Key Club, says that her favorite event is one that has not been formally announced or implemented yet.
“One of the goals of the CNH District is to raise awareness for mental health, so Key Club plans to initate a mental health awareness week before students have to take their finals or other exams such as AP or IB exams,” Tran responds.
She adds that the club will be “making individual encouraging cards to cheer on students, put up posters with positive affirmations, and supply students with activities for mindfulness.”
As one can see, Key Club is a student-led service club that aims to give back to the community as well as getting in some community service hours. It’s a global organization that focuses on leadership skills, character building, compassion, and inclusiveness which Tran states has been going good so far this term.
With distance learning taking place last year, it was hard for many clubs to recruit members and to keep their club alive and running.
Key Club, despite being one of the oldest service clubs at the school, were not excluded from this dilemma and while they faced issues such as club membership, “membership and participation has vastly improved since we’ve transitioned to in-person school. It’s been a lot more fun and engaging since being back in-person” Tran gladly comments.
However, Tran isn’t the only person to feel this way. A senior and long-time member of the club, Grace Schultz, remarks that one of favorite things about being a part of the club was that “I have always really enjoyed giving back through volunteer work and Key Club gives so many awesome opportunities to do that. I also love that all the members have this in common, so there’s really great camaraderie.”
While it’s still early on in the school year, things are looking bright for Key Club in terms of the service opportunities and events that are going to be happening. If you’re interested in joining, you can find Key Club on Tuesdays at lunch in the Little Theater and can text @mvkey2022 to join the remind for updates and more information.
