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Jacob Samoranski
ENC 1101-0114
3 November 2014
Paper 2 Final Draft
Key Club: Communication Is Key
Volunteering itself has been around for as long as man existed. The idea of volunteering
in America had been started by Benjamin Franklin back in 1736, where he had created this first
ever volunteer firehouse. Although a lot has changed since the beginning of volunteering, the
principles of volunteering have stayed the same.
Fast forward over one hundred years later, Key Club is a club that is a part of Kiwanis
International, which is an organization that was created in 1915. However, Key Club
International was formed ten years later, in 1925. The goal of Key Club is to have a student-ran
organization that gives students the opportunity to do service, as well as building leadership. The
way that Key Club was founded was that two members of Kiwanis had worked within a high
school in California when they had the idea of making a service club for their high school that
would be similar to Kiwanis. Today, Key Club is both the oldest and the largest high school
service club in the world, with over 270,000 members between 5,000 clubs in 30 different
countries! Though these members every year Key Club is responsible for 12 million hours of
volunteer work.
Although these numbers are impressive, not everybody knows about Key Club, how to
join it, or what it even is. The more aware and informed high school students are of Key Club,

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the more people that will join it and help the common goal that every club shares: community
service. In this article I will try to reach out to inform others of Key Club, how it is organized,
and how we communicate in order to argue that it is a discourse community for volunteers.
My Experience and the Experience of Others
In high school I had no idea about Key Club, or any club for that matter. It wasnt until I
had started to become close to my 9th Grade English I Honors teacher, Mrs. Desiante that I had
heard about Key Club. I decided that next year I would join Key Club and give it a shot, so in
10th grade I had become an official member of Key Club. I had been an active member that
whole year, and in 11th grade I got even more involved by organizing an Easter fund raiser for
our club. It was then when I decided to hold an officer position and become the Editor for my
third and final year in Key Club. Holding that position had broadened my knowledge of Key
Club as a whole and taught me valuable information that a normal member would not know.
My own membership within Key Club allowed me to learn about the organization,
however, before writing this paper, I got in contact on the phone or over internet and conducted
very brief interviews with a few people and asked them different questions that they would be
able to answer. These people are: Danielle Desiante, an English teacher at my old high school
and a previous sponsor of my schools Key Club for several years; Michael Risola, the Lt.
Governor for division 12, which was the division that my school was in; and Koehler Machulus,
the current Key Club President for the 2014-2015 school year at my high school after I left. With
my prior knowledge, their answers to my questions, and information included on the Key Club
website, I had collected enough data to be able to analyze John Swales six characteristics of a
discourse community in response to Key Club. John Swales six characteristics of a discourse

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community includes: a group of common goals, intercommunication, feedback and information,


genres, lexis, and a threshold of membership.
Results from Observation
Goals. The common goal throughout any Key Club club is to be able to provide different
types of volunteer opportunities to the members. While volunteering at these different events
members will learn leadership skills that can be applied in and out of the club. Although different
clubs may run and operate slightly differently the end goal is the same. I had asked Koehler
Machulus his goals within Key Club for this year and he has stated that he wanted to gain more
members this year, provide more opportunities of volunteering, and to make the members more
closer/not as distant by having more meetings and boosting involvement. He had told me that
Key Club at J. W. Mitchell High School, my old high school, had increased by almost double the
members of last year, making it the largest club at Mitchell now. Individual member goals
usually include joining Key Club to make friends, or to have an impressive college application.
Intercommunication. The most important characteristic of this discourse community is
intercommunication, without any of the members communicating with each other the club would
fall apart. In order to operate a specific schools Key Club they must keep in touch to stay
updated on different meetings or events. To start, my schools Key Club had a mandatory
meeting every two weeks so that we could update our members of any upcoming volunteer
events or information in general. If a member couldnt make it to a meeting they would have to
provide an excuse or receive a strike and risk termination of their membership. Other Key Clubs
may choose to have a meeting every week, every month, or never have a meeting, depending on
how their club is set up or ran. Our clubs sponsor, Mrs. Desiante. had asked me as Editor, to

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create and organize a Facebook group for Mitchell Key Club where I would post meeting dates,
times, and locations, different volunteer event information, and pictures at different events of
members. I had also been in charge of making calendars every month to give to members at
meetings, as well as, making news slides for the Mustang News on the television throughout
school.
Another way of keeping in touch was that we had a specific text messaging group chat
between all ten officers so that we could communicate with each other regarding meetings or
running of the club. Our Key Club sponsor Mrs. Desiante would also text message us if she ever
had a question or needed to share something with us. Not only would we text officers, but we
would text members if they had any questions for us regarding Key Club or a specific event. An
officer would be in charge for any select event and when a member signs up for an event they
would place their name and phone number on a piece of paper so that the officer in charge would
be able to call them if they hadnt showed up, or to answer anything that they needed.
Lastly, every month there would be a division meeting for every schools Key Club in
our division where the officers that could make it would meet. At these meetings we would
discuss different Key Club events or raise questions to each other on how to solve different
problems or provide better, alternative ways to improve something. For example, my school had
helped another school set up the activeness of members in their school by showing them how we
had set up our club and made sure that our members were involved.
Membership. The way that Key Club is set up is that each specific schools club has
members. Above those members are student officers, who include but are not limited to:
President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Editor, and Historian. Next to the student officer,

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because Key Club is a student-ran club, is the Sponsor, which is a teacher. Their job is to
monitor over the club and act as a lifeline if the officers ever need help, and to help guide the
officers to flourish the club. In Florida, Key Club has different divisions made up of different
schools. My school, as stated earlier was in division 12. Each division is run by a Lt. Governor
who oversees all of the schools in their division. All of the divisions in Florida make up the
Florida district, which is then ran by a Governor who is elected at a yearly Key Club district
convention, Michael Risola had informed me. Key Club International has 33 districts total, all
over the world.
Understanding Key Club as a Discourse Community
Volunteering has come a long way through history, and although we have changed as a
society, Key Club International, the oldest and largest high school volunteer club is successful
due to the way it is organized and more importantly, the way we communicate. Key Club is a
discourse community, through it, high school students all over the world can share in the same
experience of volunteering and making the world a better place, while learning quality life skills
they will use the rest of their lives. The organizational structure and communication seen within
Key Club allow it to prosper and thrive, so that it can make an impact on this world and
accomplish their goal: to provide community service and leadership.

Works Cited
Desiante, Danielle. Personal Interview. 24 October 2014.

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Machulus, Koehler. Personal Interview. 24 October 2014.


Risola, Michael. Personal Interview. 24 October 2014.
Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Bedford/St. Martin. 2014. Print

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