SBHS student elected Lt. Gov. for tri-county division
A local Hollister student has taken over the Lt. Gov. position
for the Division 43 Key Clubs, which encompasses San Benito, Santa
Cruz and Monterey counties. It is the fourth time in the club’s
20-year history that a San Benito High School student has taken on
the role.
India Moreno, a sophomore, was inducted at the 65th District
Convention in Anaheim, held April 14-17.
SBHS student elected Lt. Gov. for tri-county division
A local Hollister student has taken over the Lt. Gov. position for the Division 43 Key Clubs, which encompasses San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. It is the fourth time in the club’s 20-year history that a San Benito High School student has taken on the role.
India Moreno, a sophomore, was inducted at the 65th District Convention in Anaheim, held April 14-17.
“I joined Key Club this year and I didn’t really know what it was about,” she said.
But she quickly got involved with community service in Hollister through the club, which is sponsored by the Hollister Kiwanis Club. She volunteered with the Small Steps shopping day, at the city’s breakfast with Santa, and raised money for various nonprofits such as the Pediatric Trauma Program, which helps prevent accidents, and Unicef.
Moreno also had a chance to attend rallies with some of the other chapters, as well as regional training conferences, such as the Candidate Training Conference.
“I had to prepare a speech and had to go through caucus questions,” she said of being elected as Lt. Gov. in February. She was inducted in April, along with 59 other students from the California-Nevada-Hawaii district.
She said her duties include managing the Key Clubs at 10 schools in the division.
“Every month, I have to hold a division council meeting with all the schools to discuss what we are doing and bring people closer together, usually through a service event,” she said. “I have club visitations where I will have to visit each club. I will be transferring information from the clubs to the district level and informing them of what’s happening.”
Moreno said when she first signed up for the club it was a way to do the community service that is required in high school. But as she participated in visits to the senior citizens’ homes in the area and tutoring elementary school students in reading, she wanted to get the club more involved on a higher level.
“I saw how uninvolved our own school was in the district level, connecting with other high schools,” she said. “It’s pretty fun once you get more involved and meeting people from different high schools.”
Moreno said she felt prepared to take on the role of Lt. Gov. because of the past conferences she attend, which offer leadership training and confidence-boosting workshops.
“They go through several opportunities throughout the year – leadership events where not only leaders, but the general membership can attend,” said Jim Hart, the Hollister Kiwanis President and region 17 CNH Key Club advisor. “They learn not only about the offices they serve, but general self-improvement type training, including time management and public speaking, dressing for success – all the things that go along with training for leadership or success in school and later in life, in careers and so on.”
Key Club International was established in 1925, in Sacramento, and is the largest student-led high school service organization in the world. It has 250,000 members in 30 countries. The San Benito High School club was chartered in 1990, according to Hart. Hart listed some of the past activities as the Hollister Relay For Life, for which members have raised $20,000 through the years, downtown and river clean-ups, senior citizen activities such as a “Senior Prom” and fundraising.
“I’m very enthusiastic about the organization itself,” Hart said. “And its been a few years since we had someone willing to step up to a leadership role…For me it’s exciting as well to have someone who will hopefully be able to work with the clubs in our area and hopefully get them to be a more cohesive group of clubs that can do more to support their communities and projects that the organization has.”
Hart acknowledged that the division role can be challenging as the student has to get to meetings at other clubs and attend different conferences for the district level.
“India was definitely right there at the top. She’s the one who volunteered to do the reading program with elementary school students after school and she is still doing that,” Hart said. “Besides being capable and certainly qualified by her training, she’s also got a serving art. We are very enthusiastic and very hopeful that she will have a successful term.”
Moreno herself said she is most looking forward to getting to know students from the other high schools. She is especially excited about attending the International convention in June, in Arizona.
“There are supposed to be people from Australia and Jamiaca, and other countries,” she said. “So yeah, I’m pretty excited.”
She also wants to encourage other students to join the clubs.
“It’s more than just community service,” she said. “It allows you to step out of your comfort zone.”
Benefit pasta feed
The Hollister Kiwanis Club and the San Benito High School Key Club will host the 10th annual benefit pasta feed, April 29, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with meals available for pick up in Baler Alley (behind the school cafeteria. The meal includes pasta with meat sauce (meatless sauce available on request), garlic bread, salad and dessert. Tickets are $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under. The proceeds benefit the scholarship fund for graduating seniors. Tickets are available at Postal Graphics, in the Nob Hill shopping center, 1760 Airline Hwy., or Bianchi, Kasavan and Pope LLP, 234 Sixth St. Tickets are also available from Kiwanis Club and Key Club members. For more information, call 801-5930.
