LAKESIDE HIGH SCHOOL KEY CLUB

Lakeside High School Key Club was founded in the fall of 1995 when the late Meryl Reed, a life-long member of the Greater Hot Springs Kiwanis Club asked Kerry Lockwood Owen to begin this Kiwanis sponsored service organization for young people at Lakeside. This partnering of young people with professional business community, as well as the nonprofit sector, has become a valuable teaching tool for students who are learning the importance of service over self-gratification.

For the past six years, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students that make up Lakeside High School Key Club have worked hand and hand with several organizations. In the spring of 2001, the Club coordinated and supervised the Fifth Annual Sophomore Youth Service Day, which involved the entire sophomore class of 250 students at Lakeside High School. Students pulled weeds, planted trees and re-mulched planting best surrounding the Hot Springs Civic and Convention Center.

At the Youth Center, kids painted the gym, den and ramps and did a complex clean-up and flowerbed renovation and planting. On Saturday of each month of the school year, ten to thirty members of the Key Club work for Habitat for Humanity, clearing brush and rocks, raking the yards, spreading dirt and installing sod, among other projects. Twice a month during the school year, approximately 15 Lakeside High School Key Club members take pets from Hot Springs Animal Services to a local nursing home to interact with the residents.

Partnering with the Arkansas School for Math and Sciences Interact Club and the Hot Springs/Garland County Volunteer Center, Lakeside High School Key Club students sponsored and participated in a Halloween Carnival to benefit area youth. Key Club students mentor at the after-school program at the Boys and Girls Club on a bi-weekly basis.