Whistles are blown from every direction. Cheering and screaming came from over 1,500 kids in one non-sound proof room. Pink, green, and blue lights flashed from center stage, lighting up hundreds of faces. “Welcome to the 2009 International Key Club Convention’s Opening Ceremony!” announced Kia, the 2008 International President and the room roared louder. Thirty of the thirty-three nations involved in Key Club all in one enormous dining hall. The excitement and feel of the room was indescribable, first time attendees’ jaws gaping at the whole view of the room.

After leaving the opening ceremony with my group of Kansans, we entered the Sheridan hotel. We were greeted by bright pink boas, floaties, and hula skirts wore by the hundreds of people in the lobby. Suddenly, a girl in a pink boa was in front of my roommate, Nicole and me. The girl was explaining how she had traveled for several hours from Aruba and was happy to see unfamiliar faces. Her enthusiasm was unlike anyone else’s I had met before. I learned quickly, though, that the enthusiasm had spread like wildfire. Before Nicole and I entered our room on floor 29 we had already quickly met kids from Germany, Louisiana, Florida, and Australia. Their unique accents and different styles of clothes are what intrigued me the most.

When we completed the registration, four people from my group and I decided to attend the Service Fair across the street. At the fair there were projects done by kids from many nations. As I entered the room I was overwhelmed to see that there were over seventy different booths. Each booth contained a display board, pamphlets and the kids who serviced the project. The first booth that caught my attention was from Tennessee. Their booth had a very large, colorful donation box and a huge display board with many pictures and pamphlets. The students explained that their local Key Club slept outside their school with donation boxes to show how serious homelessness has become. “What we really hoped to gain by all of this was the community’s attention to raise money, clothes, and food for those less privileged,” explained one of the kids. He also told us that all of them had spent more than twenty-four hours outside raising at least ten boxes of donations plus fifty dollars. As I walked from one booth to another I realized even though we were all from different places on this earth we have one focus in common, we want to help others. The inspiration within the service fair and the whole convention was quite motivating.

Over the past few years I’ve had opportunities to meet new people and learn numerous life lessons. Despite my many opportunities, the International Key Club Convention was the first time I met people from other nations, seeing various and common view points literally from all over. This experience in particular opened my eyes and made me want to get out in the world even more. From this trip my focus for my senior year is to capture the diversity and common qualities we have here at my high school, like I saw in Dallas. Knowing that others share the same views on helping humanity as I do, it makes me look forward to all the good that can be done. For my senior year I hope to show others the diversity and common qualities of everyone around us and how it can be put into helping society by incorporating this idea into my writings within the school newspaper and yearbook. Hopefully, one day I’ll have the privilege to show this to view to society with writings in a famous magazine or newspaper.