Salamanca High School

Billie Breazeale BBreazeale@salamancany.org
Ann Smith - ASmith@salamancany.org

President: 
Vice President: 
Treasurer:
Secretary:

Key Club International is the high school organization sponsored by Kiwanis International. Key Club assists Kiwanis in carrying out its mission to serve the children of the world. High school student members of Key Club perform acts of service in their communities, such as cleaning up parks, collecting clothing and organizing food drives. They also learn leadership skills by running meetings, planning projects and holding elected leadership positions at the club, district and international levels.

The Salamanca Key Club is starting a new initiative that will help all. We ask that in lunch if you have unopened food or fruit that you do not intend to eat, to please drop it in the FOOD BUS located in the cafeteria. This food will go to community programs who are in need, such as the Salamanca Food Pantry in the Community Action Building and the Salamanca Youth Center. We need your help to accomplish this goal and we are asking that instead of throwing your food out or leaving it on a table, that you simply put it in the food bus located in our cafeteria. Look for the Big Bus! Thank you - The Key Club.

• Annual Scholarship Dinner - June 19, 2018
  It was an honor for our Kiwanis club to recognize students from Salamanca, Randolph and Ellicottville at our 18th annual scholarship dinner. We are also happy that our honorees from the Salamanca district are all members of our Kiwanis Key Club! We hope that creation of Key Clubs in the Ellicottville and Randolph high schools is on the horizon. Congratulations to all!
  

Key club is a Kiwanis sponsored group organization for high school students looking to become bet-ter members of society. This is Salamanca’s second year for their Key Club and they are doing big things. Every year there is a Key Club Leadership Training Conference that takes place in Albany. This year was the 70th annual conference so the students all got together to celebrate 70 years of amazing service.
About 11 of our students got packed up and headed to Albany for the weekend. When they arrived at the hotel they were greeted by Lieutenant Governors from all over New York State. During the three days they were there, attendees had four different opportunities to participate in a selection of workshops to learn about ser-vice projects and how Key Club can apply to many aspects of life. Students enjoyed meeting other Key Clubbers from across the state. SHS Junior Karomi Whitcomb said her favorite memory from the Confer-ence was interacting with new people and getting to play games at the Playfair. Play-fair was an opportunity for all the attendees to come together in one big room and meet as many peo-ple as you possibly could in an hour and fifteen minutes.
The Salamanca chapter of Key Club plans to go to this conference every year from this point on. There were so many learning opportunities that the students brought back to the club with them. The Key Clubbers are planning so many new things for the

SALAMANCA NYLES PANUS INSTALLATION AS LT. GOVERNOR - KEY CLUB

Salamanca school celebrates Thanksgiving with community dinner, student artwork

Click here for the full Salamanca Press Article

SALAMANCA - The messages of thanks and giving in the community were on display Tuesday evening as the Salamanca City Central School District held a community dinner and recognized a student-made art mural with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Over 400 people on Tuesday attended the Salamanca school district’s inaugural Community Thanksgiving Dinner in the junior-senior high school cafeteria with support of the newly formed Key Club.

“We have a lot of talent here,” said Kim Dry, a business teacher and co-advisor of the Key Club. “You’ll see it on the wall, you’ll see it in the kitchen and you’ll see it in the cafeterias. We have a lot of amazing students, staff and administrators that helped make this happen.”

The Key Club, a branch of Kiwanis Club, is an international, student-led organization which provides its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership.

“Mrs. Dry and I were really energized about starting a community service group,” said Helen Keefe, co-advisor of Key Club and high school English teacher. “She and I talked to Dr. (Mark) Beehler, and he talked with other powers at hand and within a few days we were told we can start Key Club.”

Through the core values of Key Club, members pledge to “uphold the objects of Key Club International; to build my home, school and community; to serve my nation and God; and combat all forces which tend to undermine these institutions.”

Key Club was approved for the community dinner just three weeks before the date, Keefe said. The students were full of emotion — both good and bad — about having limited time, but when they found out it would be completely student driven, attitudes quickly changed.

“It almost became not a sense of defeat, but, ‘Hey, let’s see how good we can make this,’” she explained. “And when they found out they all had their own roles … that they could sign up things and take responsibility for certain aspects of the dinner, it was just great.”

The students said they are involved because they love their community.

“If you look around, everything here is done by a student,” said Dry. “We were just pushed around as adults. We just went to what we were told to do.”

The evening’s menu included turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls and desserts, as well as coffee, water and lemonade to drink. Music by the high school jazz band and a capella choir was also provided.

In one week, students collected 1,300 pounds of potatoes, 245 boxes of stuffing, 340 cans of corn and 57 cans of cranberry sauce, according to a press release provided by the school. Items continued to come in up to the day of the dinner. Donations made by the community helped purchase the remaining items needed.

BEFORE THE MEAL, an opening ceremony and signing of the Ganö:nyök mural was held, recognizing the students who spent the fall creating the artwork for the community.

Students in Lori MacArthur’s JCC Art Class, and a variety of independent learners who helped with preparation and materials, collaborated to create the mural in the hallway near the cafeteria and gym at the junior-senior high school campus.

The 118-foot-long mural is an original design depicting the Ganö:nyök. The Ganö:nyök is what the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois nations, commonly call the “Thanksgiving Address.” At the ceremony, Salamanca student J.W. Bova-Shelton gave the Ganö:nyök.

All social and ceremonial gatherings start and end with reciting the Ganö:nyök, which is sometimes called “the words that come before all else.” The Ganö:nyök serves as a reminder to appreciate and acknowledge all things. The words express thanks for fellow human beings, Mother Earth, the moon, stars, sun, water, air, winds, animals and more.

Seneca Language teacher Rachel Wolfe gave a presentation on Seneca Culture earlier in the year, inspiring MacArthur to offer the project to her students.

“This project is about beauty, culture and pride,” MacArthur said in the December issue of The Pow-Wow.

Both Native American and non-Native students were involved with the project, bringing original designs and spending many hours creating drafts and critiquing each other’s work, MacArthur said. They used black, red and white acrylic paint.

“Students are proud of the mural, and are concerned about the quality of work as it is a permanent installation,” she added.

“TONIGHT HAS BEEN an outstanding example of the work that can happen and the opportunity for students and the community to collaborate when we put the right people in the right spots,” said Beehler, assistant superintendent for academic services and a Kiwanis Club member.

Throughout the evening, Salamanca junior Brandon Gardner kept things running smoothly by showing everyone what to do and explaining what their jobs would entail.

“Mrs. Keefe told me about (Key Club) in English class,” Gardner said. He told Keefe he had worked in a kitchen before and she asked him if he could cook a little bit for the dinner, and his responsibilities grew from there.

“This shows that the school is not just for the school — for just kids to learn,” Gardner said. “For the community, it’s for everyone to come in and be a family.”

One of the other students taking charge was Zach Schamilitello, a chef who had spent much of his free time preparing for the dinner, working from 2 until 10 p.m. the night before, he said.

“A lot of patients with your peers, a lot of thinking and figuring out how to get so many things going at once,” Schamilitello said of working with about a dozen other students.

The free dinner was not just for students and their families, but anyone residing in the area. Those who are elderly, may be alone during the holiday or have empty bellies more often than not were all welcome to attend

“The school wants to support the community and help the families that are less fortunate,” Schamilitello said. “Or if people are working Thursday, they can still come out and have a Thanksgiving with friends and others in the community.”

According to Keefe, the Key Club has already begun brainstorming for their December service projects as well as other projects for the new year.