What is the best service organization?

CIRCLE K!

Tonight was Trivia Night in our town and our CKI Club went to represent! The Trivia Night was for our Relay for Life team and we had a GREAT turn out. We did come 12th out of 16 teams, but at least we didn't lose :o). Which is a great service project, because you are helping Relay for Life, but it's also a Fellowship time... especially when the Category is "The Sopranos" and NO ONE on your team had seen the show.

Well I am sorry for the lack of blogging, just been a bit busy with making sure that my flies in my genetics class are mating correctly ;). Which is one point that I would LOVE to say right now: Academics come first! I say it ALL the time to my club and to the members of the other organizations I am involved with. I do this, so that when it comes to the point when I need some leg room, I can receive it without hesitation. [I had a Genetics paper due Friday... and a MRF due Thursday... lets just say that I had to ask for an extension :)] We are all college students and we understand there are limits, so please, serve all you can... but that's all that CKI asks of you.

Some projects that I have been doing are:

Working at the Kiwanis Family Service Day in Wisconsin-Upper Michigan at the Boys Soccer State Tournament as field security... yeah... they DO need security. I caught three people trying to climb over the fence and had to tell people to buy tickets because they were watching the game outside of the fence.. people... c'mon now it's just $5 ;).

I cooked lunch at the Ronald McDonald House close to Jacksonville. We cooked a chicked-fried rice stirfry and they LOVED that it wasn't pasta. When we toured the building, I realized that they needed a new selection of DVDs, more food for the pantry, and greeting cards for the residences to send out for free. So, instead of doing what all the OTHER volunteers do, we have decided to "adopt" this House and make it where they are paying for as LITTLE for the little things as possible.

Finally, I played Bunko... (yeah never heard of it neither) with the Alzheimer patients at a local assisted living homes close to campus. There are two places that I have found that love to have us and we try to switch to the other place every other month. Most of the time we play BINGO with stuffed animals as gifts, but not this time. This time THEY had games for us to play and manicures to give out. It was a great time, and I suggest getting to know your elderly b/c they LOVE to sit and talk :o).

Well until next time (which will probably be after Thanksgiving) so HAPPY TURKEY-EATIN'-DAY!

JJ

Red, White, and Blue...History in the making!

Hey guys!

First off, I hope you voted :o).

Secondly, I had a killer Halloween (no pun intended). As I mentioned before, I was going to help out at a Haunted Trail and Trick or Treat for UNICEF. For the Haunted Trail, I was the scary Dr. Death... Dr. Jones. I did it for three nights and pretty much have the whole creepy chainsaw thing down (even though my fingers are still stained red from that STUPID fake permanent blood). Overall, I think this was a HUGE success for our club when it comes to service projects. We had 10 people total help with it over the course of 3 nights (Wed, Thurs, Fri) with a lot of returners. Also, my chartering Kiwanis Club President was leading it... had to help him out :).

We actually started our Halloween week off on Tuesday (the night of our meetings) as a time to fundraise for TOT for UNICEF. After 1.5 hours, press releases in the newspaper, and a few people at our city municipal building not knowing what TOT was we raised $528.23!!! In our town that is a HUGE accomplishment... I feel.

We also had our fundraiser of selling LIVE Christmas Greenery. We are going to make about $500 MORE from this fundraiser and this goes DIRECTLY to the community through our Adopt-a-Family project. I feel that this fundraiser went over better than ANY other fundraiser at our college b/c:

1. We got something that appealed to the faculty and staff.
2. We could tell exactly what it was used for.
3. We told them how it was used last year and contacted last year's buyers.

So our club is on a very good path with club activities and fundraisers... we just need to have more socials... period.

Until my next post! BYES!

JJ