Garden Plain High School offers a wide variety of clubs for students to participate in, one of which is the KAY club. KAY stands for Kansas Association for Youth. KAY is a statewide organization in Kansas that focuses on promoting leadership and teaching students how to make a positive impact on their community. Throughout the year they host a handful of fundraisers including the craft fair, making tie blankets for St. Jude’s Hospital, a blood drive, and a food drive.
KAY sponsor, Mrs. Amy Schmidt, is also a business teacher at Garden Plain. She has been the sponsor for two years, after replacing the previous business teacher. The biggest fundraiser of the year is the craft fair, where vendors can sign up to have a booth to sell their products and goods. Schmidt states, “We get the vendors mostly from reaching out to whoever was here the previous year, and we advertise for vendors and for attendees on all the socials along with school emails and announcements. We charge a fee for each table and this is how we make our money off of the event. We also offer all of the student groups who want to participate a free table at the Craft Fair for their fundraising efforts.”
KAY members help to set up for fundraisers and work at some of the events to keep everything organized. When talking to Schmidt about the craft fair she says, “The KAY members do all of the booth assignments, set up, and work during the Craft Fair. We help the vendors load in and out for the show and the vendors LOVE this feature of our Fair!” Freshman Kennedy Hayden is a member of the KAY board and is the club’s treasurer. As treasurer, she manages the funding and income from all the events and fundraisers to make sure they are used for a good cause.
One major event the KAY members get the opportunity to attend during the year is the KAY conference. The main purpose of the conference is to help educate students about leadership and how to make a bigger and better impact on your community. Hunter Hayden, a member of KAY who attended the conference this year said his favorite part was, “Getting to meet a bunch of people from other schools and learning how to make a difference in my own community.” During the conference they have multiple guest speakers and interactive activities for the students.