Community service is my life. As a young boy in elementary school, I joined K-Kids taking my first steps into the Kiwanis family. In middle school, I continued into Builders Club where I began getting more involved than ever before. High school come around and I joined Key Club. Coming into college, it only seemed logical that I would join Circle K, right?
It wasn’t that simple.
Last semester, the Circle K meetings were held at the same time I had my favorite class of all time: calculus! <3
I hated that something was stopping me from joining my favorite club so when the time came for selecting Spring semester classes, I actually built my schedule around Circle K and made sure I had NO CLASSES ON WEDNESDAYS and moved everything to Tuesdays and Thursdays instead.
Sure enough, an e-mail was sent out a few weeks later announcing that meetings were moved to Tuesdays. Of course.
I may have cried. It was a sad awakening. Maybe I wasn’t meant to join Circle K…
Then, when I was scrolling through Facebook, I noticed something! The meetings started when my class ENDS – not when it begins, as I had previously thought! Maybe I COULD go to the meetings! I’d always be late because of the commute but it might still be doable.
On that note, I went to my first meeting on Tuesday. I walked into a silent room. Turns out it was election day! And no one was running for secretary: my favorite position! I felt silly but I asked if I could run despite being a new member and they told me I could if I paid my dues – so I paid them on the spot.
When they opened nominations, I hesitantly raised my hand but was beat to it by a friend in the room who nominated me without me even asking! Wow!
I am NOT one to think on the spot and there was no time to prepare for my speech and questioning. Two other people were nominated so I wasn’t running unopposed anymore either. I couldn’t mess this up.
When I walked up, I was a bit flustered but I told everyone the truth about why I was running, why I’ve never been to a meeting before, and why I want to be their secretary. When questioning began, someone asked me what the Circle K core values are and I basically guessed all three of them correctly. I thought that was kind of funny. ^.^
I ended up getting elected and I’m still speechless and so honored. These people just met me – this frantic freshman who walked into elections 30 minutes late – and they chose to trust me with one of their club’s officer positions. What a great feeling!
Being an officer in Circle K feels like it has restored a part of my identity that was missing, or misplaced, rather. This past semester was the first time since I was seven years old that I wasn’t an active member in one of the Kiwanis family clubs. I did not like that.
In any case, it’s good to be back. Look, we made bracelets for kids in local hospitals!
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Brilliant news!
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