Flint Lake is proud to be one of several of the Valparaiso elementary schools to have a K-Kids organization. K-Kids is a branch of Kiwanis made up entirely of kids. We’ve had K-Kids at Flint Lake for two years, and it was started by a group of former Flint Lake students that are now high schoolers. At Flint Lake, we went from having around 20 students last year to now having 60! It’s a fun and important group because we bring together a mix of personalities and focus upon helping others to the best of our ability.
Our K-Kids have done a variety of things to help others locally and globally. We started by Trick-or-Treating for Unicef. This money went to help eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus. We also wrote inspirational messages on the sidewalk where kids and adults could see them as they entered our school. On Veterans Day, we collected snacks and chapstick for the military. Over the holidays, we had two projects. We made fleece blankets for Ronald McDonald House at the Memorial Hospital in South Bend. We also made care packages for the homeless in our community. Our most recent project was making Valentine’s Day themed placemats for Meals.
We are proud to announce that we also have some more exciting projects planned for the rest of the year. We’ll be having a coat check at our school Fun Fair to raise money for future projects. We will have a book drive for Hilltop Neighborhood House, and we are planning some events to interact with the elderly. Finally, we are planning a cleanup of either the school or the community. We look forward to helping people and making a difference.