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Santa’s visit a
special day of magic
GHS Key Club…
Successful “Box City” event to be repeated this weekend
CNO File Photos
from Box City 2011
Greenville High School Key Club and Key Club International is once
again sponsoring “Box City” this weekend. The purpose of the event is
to raise awareness about homelessness in the area while collecting
goods for local homeless shelters.
While registration can continue until the last minute – all students in
grades 9-12 are welcome to participate – GHS Key Club expects more than
30 Club members and guests to be joining “Tribes” and building their
cardboard box shelters starting Saturday evening.
KCI Ohio District Secretary Mariah Reitz, who introduced “Box City” in
2011, and GHS President Claire Sherman, both GHS seniors, planned this
year’s event. It will include exchanging donated items for their Box
City “cardboard building supplies,” establishing Tribes, constructing
Tribe Colonies and participating in Tribal War Games. Students will
have opportunities to sleep, watch a movie, sleep or just “hang out”
until Wake-Up Call and breakfast Sunday morning.
The event will wrap up with Awards to the best Tribes and Box City
clean-up. The event will be chaperoned by Key Club Advisors, school
officials and parents.
The successful 2011 event can be best summarized by a comment from
Piqua Key Club and KCI Division 3 Advisor Mark Reedy…
“My personal thrill was the wide-open discussion concerning
homelessness… it’s discussions like these that give us old people hope
for the future,” he said.
He was referring to a sobering group interaction where students – some
of whom were homeless themselves – talked about the plight of the
homeless. In the discussion, nearly every student in the room had his
or her story to tell, or thoughts to express. It was a sobering
discussion, eliciting strong emotions in many of the students.
The event also benefitted the community.
“We gave carloads full to food and clothing banks, and helped the GHS
Special Education student group!!” Reedy added.
GHS Principal Chris Mortensen, currently GJHS Principal, noted that the
event was planned and executed, despite unexpected challenges, as well
as or better than any event he’d ever seen organized by adults.
“Students were great all evening long,” he said. “They handled the
needed changes and adapted to all barriers for the evening and hardly
blinked an eye before setting the new plan. I am sure they learned well
from this event and will make it ten times better on the next run.”
The barriers? Rain, for which they had the GHS Gym planned as a backup.
The backup was removed when another event unexpectedly took precedence.
Without missing a beat, organizers established Tribal Colonies
throughout the hallways of Greenville High School.
Key Club International is the largest student-led community service
organization in the world, with more than 200,000 members. Local clubs
are sponsored by local Kiwanis organizations.
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