MIA's Outstanding Key Club Wins International Award

If you’ve participated in just about any activity island wide in recent years, you’ve been served by members of Marco Island Academy’s outstanding Key Club. Their volunteer efforts on the island are that extraordinary and far reaching.

MIA Key Club members contributed 3,318 hours to the island in 2021 alone. Their latest honor is a second place Club Video Award from Key Club International.

“This was one of many awards this year,” Lori Galiano, Key Club advisor, said proudly. “It’s just that this one went all the way to Key Club International. We won second place for a video promoting Key Club. We also won Distinguished Club, which also goes on to Key Club International.”

The MIA Key Club has 84 members, roughly 25 percent of the school's 325 students. They compete against schools of all sizes.

"When the school was smaller,” Galiano notes, "we were running about half the school.”

Galiano marvels at how involved her students are on the island. 

“We get asked to do everything on the island,” Galiano laughs, “it’s actually comical. Our calendar is really booked. We run the club like a mini corporation.”

MIA students are required to earn community service hours in order to graduate. Galiano said students often join Key Club as a way to earn their community services hours, but then they get hooked.

“If they come young enough, they become volunteers by heart,” Galiano said, "not just for the hours. That’s usually what happens."

The winning video was student produced. Key Club members wrote the script, shot the video and provided the voice over work for the video.

“Our executive producer was Grant Tirrell,” Galiano said, “Grant worked a ridiculous amount of hours to produce that video.”

Tirrell, an officer in this year’s Key Club, did not hold an office in the club when he worked on the video that was actually produced last school year.

"I have past experience,” Grant Tirrell said, "so I volunteered to help. It was just a quick, under 60 second video about the pillars of Key Club, what Key Club’s all about, why people serve. On the Kiwanis website they list their four key pillars, so I used those. I just wrote an original script about how our Key club specifically exemplifies the way Key Club brings service to people. The voice over was done by our officers. We had some pictures and video from all the events we did that year, showing how our Key Club embodies the spirit of Key Club and Kiwanis as a whole."

Key Club is the high school branch of the Kiwanis International family.