Letter: Key Club needs help to visit the capital

I am senior at Burbank High School, where I’m a proud member of the Key Club, a student organization that maintains a commitment to serving the community while promoting a sense of involvement and unity among students.

We have supported the community by providing a volunteer workforce of students who have done everything from staffing school concerts, cleaning up beaches, participating in fundraising events for various charities, and working on Saturday mornings with autistic children in the Acing Autism program.

Burbank Key Club has 300 registered members and holds at least one service event every week. We help our school with daily chores such as recycling trash and running events. Our club has forged the values of unity, altruism, compassion, and ultimately changed the lives of many of our members.

Our next major event is the District Convention. Held April 8 through 10 in Sacramento, it brings together Key Clubs from all over California, Hawaii and Nevada. Members will complete leadership workshops and attend seminars. The convention is described as a once-in-a-lifetime experience; however the cost of attending it has prevented most of our members from accessing its benefits. Last year, the cost was excessively high to the point we had to cancel our trip.

Over the past year we have been raising money to make this trip a possibility, and we have been largely successful. However, in order to achieve our ultimate goal of making this year’s District Convention truly accessible to all of our members, we will need more financial support.

We have set our target goal at $2,000, which should cover most of the transportation and housing costs. If you are willing to make a donation to our nonprofit group for this cause we would be very grateful. Please make checks payable to Burbank High School Key Club and mail them to Burbank High School, attn. Mr. Barberia, 902 N. 3rd St., Burbank, CA 91502.

Ethan Yang

Burbank High School, Class of 2016