Kiwanis Club of White Center

Congratulations to the outstanding Youth Merit Award winners for the year!

Nathan Tran from Evergreen was the first recipient honored.  He has been a member of Key Club, where he consistently volunteers his time and talent. He helps at our Pancake Breakfast in July and regularly serves with us at the WC Food Bank, among other activities. His goals for next year are to attend the UW as a pre-med student, intending to go into family practice and to join the White Center Kiwanis club! Nathan explained that “Key Club turned my life around.” Before high school he made poor choices for friends and committed minor crimes. He would have joined a gang and possibly be dead by now if he hadn’t joined Key Club. We look forward to Nathan’s participation with our club!

Bemnet Assefa, was the next student honored. Bemnet has been President of Evergreen Key Club for two years. During her tenure she was proactive in recruiting new members from all three small schools. She also actively recruited the teacher advisors for this year. Her focus has been service, keeping her members involved and engaged in many service projects. She also helps with our Pancake Breakfast every year and volunteers at the Food Bank. When the call comes in for volunteers, Bemnet can be counted on to recruit them! She is an excellent student, choosing to attend Georgetown University in Washington D.C. next year. “Key Club is what focused my aspirations…on human rights law,” according to Bemnet. She hopes to join Circle K in college. Bemnet is an exceptional leader who will do well wherever she goes.

The third student honored was Ethan Alvarez from New Start.  Ethan was President of Key Club last year, and stepped in this year when the elected President was not able to fulfill those responsibilities. With his leadership NSHS Key Club has become stronger, bigger and more active. Seven students attended Dcon in Portland this year, which was a large delegation for that small school. Ethan also is a regular volunteer at the WC Food Bank. He has attended HCC through their Running Start program and has a 4.0 GPA. This year he has discovered a new passion for voice acting doing voice-overs and for writing. He plans to start his college career at HCC and see where that takes him. Ethan says that he joined Key Club because it was the only active organization on campus. He was “inspired to try to give it life…to have something fun to do!” Ethan also plans to continue his membership by joining Kiwanis Club next year. We look forward to working with him.