Jefferson’s Key Club chapter has revamped its largest and most impactful holiday drive once again. This annual initiative took place from Dec. 2 to Dec. 20 to donate to those in need this holiday season. This year, the club introduced a new focus on giving back to the local community, specifically allocating donations to Title I schools in the neighboring area.
Focused on leadership and having a positive impact in the community, Key Club is an international service organization for high school students, which has its own dedicated chapter at Jefferson.
“It’s a service organization aimed at aiding the community through drives and fundraising,” sophomore and secretary of Key Club, Jacob Percy said.
The holiday drive, a longstanding tradition for Key Club, has become a major priority for the group.
“During the holiday season, many people are happy and receiving gifts and celebrating, but there are others who don’t have that same privilege,” said Junior Nidhish Shakya. “Our goal [was] to help those less fortunate by donating items like books and games.”
This year’s drive was particularly significant for the club because of its shift in focus. While previous efforts primarily benefited organizations like Goodwill, this year’s donations were aimed at, “Title One schools, which are schools that have a certain threshold of students that require free or reduced lunch,” said Percy. “We’re doing this to ensure everybody has books and toys to play with.”
Organizing the drive faced several challenges. Title I schools were cautious about accepting donations and arranging partnerships with them proved difficult.
“They are obviously not willing to accept donations from random people. At the end of the day, we’re still a school club,” said Shakya. “Just finding the schools that would accept donations, what type of donations would they accept? How much could they accept? That was our main difficulty [addressing].”
Despite these challenges, Key Club was able to successfully navigate the logistics and kickstart its largest annual drive again. By donating to local Title I schools, the club made a meaningful impact on the local community.
“Our Key Club holiday drive is our biggest event of the year,” said Percy. “We are making sure that the drive helps the most people that we can.”