ANN ARBOR—A University of Michigan student organization will travel to San Diego this summer and hopes to return with its third consecutive international championship.

Circle K, 165 U-M students dedicated to service, leadership and friendship, has won the organization’s Gold Achievement Award for the past two years, besting more than 500 college chapters.

“It’s absolutely incredible,” said Katie Foley, former president and U-M senior of Rochester, Mich. “This is like our National Championship, and to win it two years in a row is a fantastic honor.” The winner will be announced at the annual Circle K International Convention Aug. 5-9.

U-M Circle K is one of many Circle K clubs that make up Circle K International, an organization sponsored by Kiwanis International. “The main focus for both Kiwanis and Circle K is service,” said Jim Blow, Circle K’s Kiwanis advisor. The Ann Arbor Eastern Kiwanis is the supporting club for the U-M Circle K. “We work together to ensure that students are provided with the chance to help others,” said Blow.

And members of Circle K get that chance. Circle K works closely with the Hope Clinic of Ypsilanti, which provides health care and related services to people in need. Currently, Circle K is helping the Hope Clinic start the Oasis Café, a nonprofit restaurant which will serve food at cost so that families who normally can’t afford to will be able to purchase a meal.

“The café will give the homeless and the poor the opportunity to have a nice meal in a dignified environment,” said Foley. “We’ve been helping with painting and cleaning, and, when the café opens, we will work as waitstaff, hosts, whatever the café needs.”

In fact, one of Circle K’s projects has become so successful that it has become its own student-led program. K-grams, short for Kids Programs, is a pen-pal service started in 1998 by former Circle K president Rishi Moudgil, of Rochester Hills, Mich., to create a relationship between University and elementary school students. “We took the passion for helping others from Circle K and turned it towards helping kids,” said Moudgil. “It just grew from there, until it became its own organization.” What began three years ago as a modest letter-exchange program has become an autonomous organization involving eight elementary schools, more than 1,000 college students, and an end-of-the-year festival called Kids Fair, where the pen pals meet face-to-face.

Circle K also has a close relationship with the Huron Valley Boys and Girls Clubs, fixing and painting their facilities, playing games and making crafts with the children throughout the year. This spring, in a Circle K sponsored Day of Service in Detroit, more than 700 U-M students started what Foley hopes to be an annual tradition by painting, repairing and landscaping various neighborhoods in Detroit. In addition to all these projects, Circle K has upwards of 30 active programs at a given time. “Circle K is doing more community outreach than ever, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Foley.

The organization doesn’t stop working when the school year ends. This summer, members are working at a Lansing soup kitchen, painting a local playground and assisting the Lansing Boys and Girls club.

Even their trip to San Diego will be done Circle K style. Moudgil is organizing “Helping Everyone Across Districts (HEAD) Tour 2000,” a grass-roots effort by local Circle K chapters to travel to the convention together, stopping in various towns along the way to volunteer wherever they are needed. “The HEAD tour combines two things Circle K-ers love most: road-tripping and service,” said Moudgil.

“At the conventions, we got to meet other clubs, but we didn’t get a sense of their communities. The HEAD tour changes that. For example, in the 24 hours we’ll spend with Kansas State University’s Circle K, we will tour their university, see the downtown area, do a service project and meet their Kiwanis sponsors,” said Moudgil. “The Kiwanians are really making this possible for us. They are providing us with places to stay, helping us find projects to complete. We couldn’t do this without them.”

Next year promises to be just as service-filled. “We’ll be active from the start with ‘What’s Up at UM,'” said current president Stephanie Hartshorn, of Peoria, IL. “It’s a student-run 5-day workshop for freshmen at the beginning of the semester to tell them everything we wished we knew when we were freshmen.” The workshop will cover topics like student life on campus and in Ann Arbor, as well as housing and academic information.

Circle K has not always had so many service opportunities on its plate. In fact, Circle K has recently gone from a relatively small organization to one of the largest student groups on campus at a time when service groups throughout the country are having difficulty recruiting members. Three years ago, Circle K had 25 members; in the 1997-98 school year, it had 100 members; today, it has 165 active members, and many others who participate in projects. Foley attributes this growth to the excellent leadership of those years. “We had some great leaders who really pushed membership. We had a successful advertising campaign, a real presence during Festifall (the student organization recruitment fair) and Welcome Week, and lots of enthusiasm,” said Foley. “We also had a group of dedicated, hard-working people.” Since then, a new group organization and the addition of project committees has allowed Circle K to start, participate in, and contribute to more community outreach programs than ever.

Don’t think that all this expansion has gone unnoticed. In addition to their two first-place Gold Achievement Awards, Circle K has won the Michigan Leadership Award for Outstanding Student Organization, the Outstanding Club President award, and a host of others.

However, said Foley, “it’s not about the awards. It’s not about the recognition. It’s not about the numbers, the statistics, or the honors, however many there may be. Circle K is about involving students in their community, developing young leaders, and fostering great friendships.”

Contact past president Foley at foleyk@umich.edu and current president Stephanie Hartshorn at shartsho@umich.edu.

Circle KCircle K InternationalHope ClinicK-gramsDay of Service in DetroitHEAD tourWhat’s Up at UM