This is my first time blogging about Key Club in a while (although I have attended every single meeting), since I had not been able to participate in any of the weekend activities (of which there have so far been two on two different occasions), but I was finally able to participate over the weekend by trick-or-treating for UNICEF.
The goal was to collect money to send to Uruguay to help underprivileged children, and this money was to be collected in UNICEF donation boxes on Halloween. I took three of the boxes and my goal was to go with my neighbors when they went trick-or-treating and to collect money rather than candy. I figured that it'd have been rude of me to cause my friends to wait, since it would take longer for people to go and get their wallets to get some money than to just hand candy, so I went around my neighborhood by myself before meeting up with my friends, and I collected about $15, plus the $5 of my own money that I put in there before I left the house. I noticed that my neighbors were very eager to donate a dollar or two once I explained what I was collecting for, and it was great to see how eager they were to donate.
Each of my friends who I was going to go trick-or-treating with, donated a dollar and there were 9 of them, so by the time the evening was over I had about $29 total, plus some change that my neighbor's mom had that she wanted to get rid of. The truth is that none of my friends actually wanted to go trick-or-treating as we had originally planned, so that was the extent of my collection for the evening. However the next day at home I looked for change around the house and asked my family (mom, grandmother, aunt) if they had any spare change or money they wanted to donate and between the rest of us, about $20 more was collected, a lot of it was change. I filled all three donation boxes and I was glad that I collected enough money to make a difference, even though some of it was my own.
Today in Key Club, we had the option to make a card for a sick child in a hospital, and the names were written on the board. I decided to make one, because I feel bad for the children who are terminally ill and can't enjoy their lives and time with their friends, and I wanted at least one child to know that there IS someone out there thinking of them and who wants to make even the smallest difference in their life. I decorated my card and made it look nice and wrote a nice message inside for a girl named Heather, and then gave the card to Hyanna so it could be mailed out with the other cards. :)
One of my learning objectives is number 5, which is to demonstrate commitment to the activity. I have been showing up to every meeting, even if I am not able to participate in that week's activity due to a busy schedule, but I am going to make time for future activities, like I did for this one. I was originally scheduled to work on Saturday but to enable myself to have the time to go trick-or-treating to collect donations for UNICEF, I switched shifts with someone and ended up working Friday instead to give myself Saturday off, to have the time to participate. In the future I am going to make time for key club activities the best that I can.
My other learning objective is to engage in activities of global importance or importance to the community, which is objective #6. I did this in two ways (collecting money and making a card for a sick child) but I would like to continue participating in activities in which I am able to either help those less fortunate, or do something that is giving back to the community. I am fortunate to live in a decent community and to not have to deal with some of the misfortunes that others go through in poorer countries (such as Uruguay in this case) and I want to do my best to better the lives of others. I feel so ungrateful sometimes knowing that I have everything handed to me and if I can help to improve the lives of those less fortunate, I will feel good to know that I did the right thing but I will be even happier to know that the other person's life has been improved. I am normally selfish and only worried about myself and by continuing to participate in these activities, I hope to become less selfish and more grateful for what I have, and aware that others may not have as much as I do.
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