POULSBO — North Kitsap High School’s Leo Club has received a mighty roar of praise from Lions Clubs International — the Leo Club Excellence Award.
In receiving the award, the group has been recognized as one of the few outstanding clubs across the country, for their work organizing and running community service events.
Senior Nate Blanchard is president of North Kitsap’s Leo Club. Blanchard said he sees the club as a way for young people to engage meaningfully with the community around them.
“It means an opportunity to connect the school with the community,” Blanchard said Oct. 5. “It’s just one way to connect all these people and also to connect with the Lions Club. Just connecting everybody in the community together. It’s really important to make connections with the community; there’s just so much that you can learn from them. They’ve lived a lot longer.”
Also honored at the event were Ashley Jayroe and Spencer Grubb, who were presented with a $200 check by Karl Ostheller, the Lions Club’s liaison to the Leo Club, for their work raising funds for Lions Clubs International. The $200, Ostheller said, is to go toward any expenses that their Leo Club deems worthy.
Even though it’s his first year as a Leo, Grubb is already swinging for the fences.
“It’s pretty cool. This is my first year doing it, so it’s really cool to be able to start off and get right into it,” Grubb said.
Jan Weatherly is the immediate past governor of Lions Club District 19C. Weatherly presented the Leo Club Excellence Award to Blanchard and noted that the club’s application for the award rose to the top soon after it was submitted.
“It really, I think, is an issue of the maturity of this club, and the depth of experience they have to be able to pull projects off that get bigger and bigger each year,” Weatherly said. “They have that legacy of being successful that breeds new success.”
When asked which Leo Club project comes to mind as an outstanding achievement, there wasn’t any hesitation in Weatherly’s reply.
“It’s the blood drive. The project they’re working on right now where they are able to get other children here to give blood with parental permission and then orchestrate the entire event themselves.”
Oct. 20 marked the start of the Leo Club’s annual schoolwide blood drive. Blanchard said he hopes this year’s drive will measure up to the success of past drives.
“We have big plans for this year and hopefully they will go well,” he said. “Last year, we had a really successful blood drive and we’re hoping to make it even better this year.”
The work of the Leo Club, Weatherly said, is not just to the benefit of the community at large, but also serves as a means of enrichment for the students themselves.
“Planting the seed of service, that really is what makes a person be more than just a breadwinner in a household or a woman that raises her children, somebody that knows our reward for being on this earth is service to other people that are in need,” Weatherly said.
“There’s plenty of opportunity out there for them to find that need.”
— Nick Twietmeyer is a reporter for Kitsap News Group. Contact him at ntwi etmeyer@soundpublishing.com.
Nick Twietmeyer | Kitsap News Group Spencer Grubb, Karl Ostheller and Ashley Jayroe pose for a photo with the $200 check awarded to the North Kitsap High School Leo Club.
Nick Twietmeyer | Kitsap News Group Spencer Grubb, Karl Ostheller and Ashley Jayroe pose for a photo with the $200 check awarded to the North Kitsap High School Leo Club.
