This Sunday, Pat-Med Key Clubbers attended the annual Fall Rally, taking venue at LIU Post. Fall Rally is a one-day convention where Key Clubbers from all across Long Island (and some city divisions) converge together. Through various workshops, icebreakers, seminars, and other activities, these dedicated volunteers are able to learn about the true workings of this international organization and make new friends.

There were three rounds of workshops. At the training session, while executive board members attended their individual sessions, workshops were also dedicated to members and advisors. The informational session provided everything from Key Club endorsed projects such as the Thirst Project and our partnership with UNICEF to running for higher office. Lastly, the “Service is Fun” workshops put in a more lax twist, with volunteers playing trivia or learning how to make dog toys from t-shirts.

K-Fair proved to be the most interesting part of the conference, where Key Clubbers were randomly assigned a group to meet new people. With fun activities such as organizing by birth month without talking, the infamous human knot, and a game called Soulmate where people were matched together based on common preferences, volunteers across the eight divisions present became acquainted with each other.

But the highlight of the day was our guest speaker and founder of the Comfort Cases Organization, Rob Scheer. Comfort Cases is dedicated to compiling packages of personalized items to children in the foster care system, and is this year’s NYDKC Governor’s Project.

Mr. Scheer gave a vocational speech on how he used his background in the foster care system to eventually start up an organization to actively “fix the system”. Incorporating shocking statistics to personalized anecdotes from his own four foster children, the presentation left everyone emotional and inspired to make a difference. From the almost 100 volunteers in attendance at Fall Rally, we were able to raise over $700 in total.

The Fall Rally event was only a small part of everything Pat-Med Key Clubbers are involved in this year. In fact, there is a Leadership Training Conference in March that is very similar to Fall Rally, but incorporates the entire New York District over the course of three days. This Sunday, volunteers both learned a lot about the organization and had a lot of fun meeting new people. For that, Key Club is truly an international organization that brings people from all corners together.