MOSES LAKE — The first event of the year for the Key Club chapter at Moses Lake High School resulted in donations of an estimated $239 in school supplies. Key Club member Sam Otey said the pens, paper, pencils and other things kids need for school will be donated to children in the Moses Lake and Ephrata school districts.

Sam said he received a donation of about $70 worth of school supplies from Walmart, and other people dropped off spiral notebooks, colored pencils, notebook paper and markers, among other things. His first donations came within 15 minutes of setting up the table, he said.

“I actually did better than I was expecting,” he said.

Ephrata High School Key Club members will sponsor a separate supply drive, he said. The Ephrata School District is not allowing clubs to work on projects due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Key Club is not one of those organizations that kids always seek out. “It’s one of those clubs where the members get — they would describe it as, you get recruited by somebody else,” Sam said.

A lot of kids who become Key Club members get invited to a meeting, he said, or someone insists they go to a meeting, saying they’ll like it in the end.

“You don’t really believe them, but you stick around for a while and fall in love with it,” he said.

Key Club is the high school affiliate of the Kiwanis. The community service aspect is what attracts a lot of its members, Sam said.

And a lot of Key Club members also like the opportunities they get to meet kids from around the state and region. As a regional officer, Otey works with fellow students from Oregon, Alaska and British Columbia as well as Washington.

“You meet people from everywhere,” he said.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, most of the chapter’s major projects have been postponed. People who want to donate to Key Club activities or students who want more information can contact Sam Otey by email at [email protected].

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached by email at [email protected].