My Key Leader Experience
by Stephen Spaseff, Key Club District Treasurer (12th Grader)

Key Leader is an exceptional leadership weekend retreat for students and Kiwanians. Students arrive at the campsite on Friday afternoon to be greeted to enthusiastic student facilitators and pleasant Kiwanians. The weekend begins with an introduction to service leadership, which can be defined by the five words: integrity, growth, respect, community, and excellence. Throughout the weekend lessons, seminars, and activities work to give students a better explanation of what it truly means to lead through service leadership. The different lessons include both individual and group activities. Individual activities include responding to lessons that have just been taught and writing "journal" entries summarizing the information and what it meant to you. Group activities are a lot more hands on and include discussions, skits, and, the most popular, ropes course. All of the group activities, especially the ropes course, teach you teamwork and help you to apply the leadership skills which are taught throughout the weekend.

Key Leader was such a great experience for me because it taught me how to be a leader in a different light. The Key Leader program teaches you that instead of leading a group or organization from the top of the pyramid, it may be more effective to flip the pyramid over and be a leader from the bottom. This unorthodox style was appealing to me because it was so different from the traditional ways leadership is taught at other leadership retreats. Service Leadership teaches one to lead by taking the workload upon ones own shoulders, as opposed to delegating it to others.

Kiwanians should sponsor students for Key Leader because it gives the students an opportunity to grow and develop their leadership skills. Students spend the weekend amongst other students just as motivated to blossom their skills. Students who wish to attend Key Leader need to have a sponsor. When you sponsor a student, you allow that individual to experience what it means to lead through service leadership. You allow a student to participate in the intriguing activities and get the most out of the program.

When I attended Key Leader last year I had a great time bonding with the other students and Kiwanians. Not everyone who participates in this weekend retreat is in Key Club; this allows us to bond with a diverse group of students and have a great time. I had a lot of fun explaining to some of the others what Key Club was and how to become involved in it. The Key Clubbers who attended spread the word of our fantastic organization and actually got a few of the students extremely interested in getting involved with Key Club. Overall, Key Leader was a great experience for me. I learned a lot, developed my leadership skills, made new friends, and had a lot of fun. I strongly recommend students to come to Key Leader this year and Kiwanians to sponsor students who wish to come. I'll be back as a student facilitator and I hope to see many of you there!