On Call for the Future

Starting today, April 1st, and lasting until July 31st this service initiative focuses on children’s health and safety issues.

In the United States alone, nearly 8,000 children are killed and at least 50,000 are permanently disabled by preventable injuries each year. These injuries lead to 360,000 hospitalizations and 10.4 million emergency room visits annually. The major unintentional injury risk areas are:

• traffic injury
  
• fire and burns
• drowning
• poisoning
• choking
• falls

April 1 through July 31 is an important time to schedule educational projects focused on keeping children safe during their summer vacation, when they will likely be playing outside and may injure themselves. This also is a great way to keep Circle K clubs and members active while attending summer classes or while home on break. The range of health and safety risks is varied:

• gang violence
• accidental poisonings
• poor eating habits
• malnutrition and disease due to neglect
• children not wearing safety belts
• malfunctioning smoke detectors in the home
• bicycling without a helmet
• unfingerprinted children who are difficult to trace if missing
  

Even though the school year is starting to wind down for some of you dont forget about the service.

Support STUFH at your DCON!

We recently sent out the following letter over the Governors' reflector:

To the Governors of Circle K International:

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Michael Zebrowski, and I currently serve as the Circle K International Service Ambassador to STUFH, Students Team Up to Fight Hunger.

Since its founding at Cornell University in 1999, STUFH has aided with the collection of over one million pounds of foodstuffs. This has helped contribute to STUFH’s core mission to increase the gathering of food on college campuses for two main purposes: to combat hunger and to increase awareness of the rising pervasiveness of hunger in our communities.

In order to ensure that we can do the most for this Service Partner, we are encouraging each of you to hold a food drive on behalf of STUFH at your District Convention. Through this International effort, we are hopeful that we can make a large contribution to this valued Service Partner.

If you want to know more about STUFH, please visit http://www.stufh.org/, or check out our STUFH Member Resource Guide, which has been made available in the “Service Partner” section of our International website. Please also feel free to contact me at Michael.NYCKI@gmail.com if you have any questions about this initiative.

Thank you again, and we really appreciate your support!

Yours in Service, Leadership, and Fellowship,

Michael Zebrowski
Service Ambassador to STUFH
NYCKI Empire Division Lieutenant Governor
Circle K International

Community Service and Awareness Week

CSAW is a week to show your support for the Focusing on the Future Service Initiative. It takes place the first full week of February ending on Saturday, the International Service Day.

For this week your club should establish some goals that enable your clubs to:

• heighten campus and community awareness of CKI and the Service Initiative
• further educate club members on the Service Initiative, and motivate each member to become actively involved in related service activities
• each day should have tasks that encompass: Kiwanis Education, The Key Club Connection, Community Education, Public Awareness, Set Up Shop, and Service Activity
  

Once the week is over and your projects are complete be sure to get recognition for your club by submitting a summary of the activities that your club sponsored throughout the week (don't worry you don't need to have sponsored something everyday of the week for recognition).

For more information on CSAW check out the Service Initiative Guide

Open a Book, Show Them the World

Service Initiative - Literacy: Open a Book, Show Them the World

Literacy is a huge problem in today's world. According to the National Center for Family Literacy:

• By age four, children who live in poor families will have heard 32 million fewer words than children living in professional families.
• One in five, or 20%, of America's children five years old and under live in poverty.
• Some 30 million adults in the United States have extremely limited literacy skills. If one teacher could teach 100 adults to read, we would need 300,000 adult education teachers to meet this need.

As Circle K'ers we are committed to help rectify this problem. We have a well established service initiative that takes place from December 1st through March 31st and a recent partnership with Better World Books. It has been proven that by exposing children to literacy at a young age are rated higher by their teachers than a randomly selected comparison group in terms of overall academic performance, motivation to learn, attendance, and likelihood of future success. So what can you and your clubs do to help?

Circle K clubs can help kids enhance their imagination and stay in school by reading with them. You can also:

• Co-sponsor a Builders or K-Kids club
• Co-sponsor an Aktion Club
• Create a library for children at a local shelter for the homeless or community center
• Implement the College Bound program in a third- to sixth-grade class to encourage students to stay in school
• Implement the Terrific Kids program at your local elementary school
• Create flash cards for children
• Implement the BUGS program at your local elementary school
• Collect books and host a book drive
• Read to students
• Mentor students
• Tutor students
• Establish book drives with Better World Books