Builders develop lifelong—and life-changing—skills

Each year students are involved in Builders Club, Katherine “Katie” Marshall believes, they develop talents and skills that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

It stands to reason, then, that Katie has talents and skills aplenty. The eighth-grade student from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a four-year member of the St. Patrick’s School Builders Club and was its 2006-07 president. She wrote about the benefits she’s derived from her experiences in a theme that recently was picked the overall winner in the 2006-07 Builders Club Essay Contest.

Katie is among hundreds of Builders Club members who vied to be the best essay writers, speakers, scrapbook organizers, and leaders in this past school year’s Builders Club contests. And like Katie, the contest entrants have a pretty good handle on what it means to be a Builders Club member.

“Builders Club provides each member with an opportunity to help others,” Katie wrote. “When we work together, we are able to get more things done quicker and more efficiently. When we get more community service projects done, it helps to better our school, community, or nation. (And) when people see us working together so well, it could inspire them to start their own community service club so that they could help others too.”

Working together is but one skill learned through Builders Club, Katie stressed.

“Some more skills and talents developed through Builders Club are being able to organize a project and get it done successfully,” she continued. “Working together, leadership, being organized, starting a project and getting it done are just (a few) ways someone or a group of people can help their schools, communities, and nation. Throughout the years we spend with Builders Club, every member will have developed skills and abilities that not only help them with bettering themselves, but also bettering the lives of others.”

Winning second place in the essay contest is Kristi Hsiao, Oak Avenue Intermediate School, Arcadia, California, while Jeffrey Saats of Harpers Ferry Middle School, Charlestown, West Virginia, received third-place honors. Other contest winners include:

Speech—Jahmiel Cocker, Supreme Preparatory School, Montego, Bay, Jamaica

Single service—First place, Edgemont School, Newport, Tennessee; second place, Princeton Middle School, West Virginia; third place, Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy, Wheeling, West Virginia

Scrapbook—First place, Buhl Middle School, Idaho; second place, Seminole Middle School, Florida; third place, Hilo Intermediate School, Hawaii

Kiwanis International Foundation Leadership Award—Vanessa Massenburg, Legacy Middle School, Orlando, Florida; Angela Marie Vyncke, Glenview Middle School, Silvis, Illinois; Ashley Brooke Poplin, Guthrie Junior High School, Oklahoma; Tanner Jones, Princeton Middle School, West Virginia.

Watch for details about the 2007-08 Builders Club contests in future editions of KIWANIS Connected and Builders Bloc, the official publication of Builders Club.