Alumni prove allies in scholarship fundraising

This past year, the Kiwanis Club of Streator, Illinois, discovered the best possible source for donations to its Key Club scholarship program: Key Club alumni.

Though the club began involvement in a scholarship program a few years ago, it only collected a few hundred dollars. But the club’s sponsored youth chairman. David Goerne, didn’t want to give the idea up. Instead, he suggested the club designate scholarships exclusively to college bound members of the Kiwanians’ sponsored Streator and Woodland High School Key Clubs. And among those the club tapped for donations, it focused on former Key Clubbers. It worked.

Using old high school class reunion booklets, city directories, and many phone calls, David, fellow Kiwanians, and current Key Clubbers tracked down about 700 former Key Clubbers, to whom they sent solicitation letters.

“It was a huge job, and it involved a lot of phone calls,” David notes, adding that the club only contacted alumni from 1996 and earlier. And, in addition to the alumni, the Kiwanians also sent letters to area businesses and others who might have an interest in Key Club, such as parents, and staged fundraisers in which the Key Clubbers participated. (Interestingly, the first donation—of $295—came from the St. Stephen’s Builders Club.)

In just a few months, the club has collected $14,000, which it has put into an investment account, and the Kiwanians have requested a matching fund from a large area business, which would boost the amount to about $30,000. David says the goal is to accumulate $100,000 and award scholarships from the investment’s interest.

But it’s about much more than the money.

“Besides helping Key Clubbers further their education, the scholarship program also helps keep them involved in Key Club,” David says. “ We find that many Key Club members drop out around their junior year, as they get busy with other things. To qualify for a scholarship, members must remain active in Key Club—attending meetings and service projects—through their senior year.”

The Kiwanis club will award its first scholarships in June 2006.