My Key Leader Experience by Alex Valentino

(a non-Key Clubber from Falls Church, Virginia)

Before my experience at Key Leader, I never found myself in a position where I needed to make all new friends.  For me one of the reasons I most enjoyed Key Leader was the experience of just meeting a whole new group of people.  Key Leader meant stepping outside my comfort zone with people I only just met.  The friendships I formed were tested soon after with trust exercises, where we all felt confident in putting our safety into the hands of people we didn't know 48 hours earlier.  I gained a sense that I can adapt and mesh easily with a new group of people relatively quickly. This is a good skill to learn or to discover if an individual hasn't had the chance to really be in a situation like that.  Not to mention the fact that I found all the other people I met there seemed to be pretty good kids, no riff-raff or slap-dash scoff-laws in this group of Key Leaders.  I hope others take the lead and learn for this experience as much as I did.  The weekend was truly a memorable one filled with a lot of memorable people. 
 
There will be two Spring 2011 Key Leader weekends - April 15-17, 2011 - Williamsburg, Virginia AND May 13-15, 2011 - Millersville, Maryland. Registration will open in January 2011 for both of these events. Kiwanis Clubs should begin identifying students in November-December (if not sooner). For more information, please contact Capital District Key Leader Chair Nicole McDermott at CapitalKeyLeader@gmail.com or 703.829.5481. Search Capital District Key Leader on Facebook and like it! Visit www.youtube.com/CapitalKeyLeader and watch live student testimonials about the quality of the program.