MOSES LAKE — One of the most active service organizations in America is turning 100 this year, and most of its members haven’t even turned 18. 

“Key Club is all about service and helping the community,” said Pedro Lopez, who’s the Key Club district governor for Moses Lake High School’s chapter. There are also chapters at Vanguard Academy and Ephrata High School, he said. 

Key Club was started in 1925 by two Sacramento businessmen as an outreach of Kiwanis International, according to its online history. The idea was to take the “key boys” – and girls, after 1977 – in a school and guide them in serving their greater community.  

There’s been a Key Club at Moses Lake High School since 1981, Said Louis Logan, the Kiwanis advisor for the Moses Lake High School chapter. It was started by a now-defunct chapter of the Kiwanis Club in Moses Lake and subsequently taken over by the remaining club. Key Club is mostly student-run but has adult advisors from both Kiwanis and the schools.  

“We try to attend their meetings, and if they need any assistance, making contacts or maybe providing treats or something like that, we try to do that,” said Susan Blackwell, the Kiwanis advisor for the Vanguard Academy chapter. “If there's assistance that Kiwanis International can provide, like grants or something like that, we try to make that connection.” 

Due to the Moses Lake School District’s recent financial woes, the teacher advisors at Moses Lake High School and Vanguard Academy, Heather Whittall and Stephanie Lopez respectively, are both serving as unpaid volunteers, Logan said. 

“Without them, we would not have had Key Club this year,” he said. 

Lopez said that key Club volunteers choose some of their own projects. At last year’s Moses Lake Spring Festival, Key Club students provided scoring services for the event’s 3-on-3 basketball tournament – a substantial job with 121 teams competing.  

“I went to the beginning meetings of Spring Fest where they talked about how they would run the event (and) how many volunteers they would need,” Lopez said. “From there, I made Google forms, and then I sent out all that information to the officers of all the Key Clubs, and then I asked them, ‘Hey, can you start promoting this event to your members?’ Once all the events were promoted, people signed up, and then we managed to get around 40 volunteers over two days.” 

For its services, the Spring Festival Committee presented the Key Club with a donation of $1,000, half of which went to New Hope in Moses Lake and the other half to the Pacific Northwest Key Club District’s project to end youth homelessness, Lopez said.

The Kiwanis also guide students toward projects, Blackwell said. 

“At Vanguard last year I had five or six committees,” she said. “One was tutoring kids at an elementary school after school. One was working with the elderly. (There was) community cleanup, food bank, collecting materials for the animal outreach.” 

Key Club students also help out the Kiwanis Club with its events, Logan said, working the concession booth at the Moses Lake Roundup Rodeo, and providing childcare at school Parent Teacher Organization meetings. 

While Key Club tends to attract students who already have a high degree of involvement, Logan said, the club is also always interested in students looking to get more involved. The club does charge dues to its members, he said, but for students who can’t pay them Kiwanis picks up the tab. 

“We want to make sure that anybody that's interested in becoming a better leader, or learning leadership skills, and wants to do things for others (has the opportunity),” he said. “It's also a fellowship, friendship organization. In their meeting, they always start with what's called an icebreaker, some kind of fun thing that everybody just giggles and laughs and enjoys themselves. We also try to build friendships.” 

There's a great deal of help to be offered.

“We've found a lot of need in the community, people that need assistance, and we're trying to fill up anywhere in the gap,” Lopez said. “You know, we're doing our best to help people, people within the Moses Lake community, within the Ephrata community, within our towns.” 

    Ephrata Key Club students set up flowers for residents at Garden Oasis Assisted Living.
  

    Key Club volunteers prepare to provide scoring for the 2024 Moses Lake Spring Festival 3-on-3 basketball tournament.
  

    Key Club members assist during a trick-or-treating event in Ephrata.