Moses Lake HS Key Club to sponsor school supplies collection

by CHERYL SCHWEIZER
Staff Writer | September 17, 2020 1:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — Members of the Moses Lake High School Key Club will collect donations of school supplies from 3 to 6 p.m., Friday, Sept. 18, at McCosh Park.

Sam Otey, MLHS Key Club member and a Pacific Northwest regional officer, said the club would set up a donation site in the parking lot next to the tennis court and the amphitheater.

“We are collecting basically any and all school supplies - paper, pencils, notebooks, colored pencils ... all that sort of stuff,” he said.

The supplies collected will be donated to the Moses Lake and Ephrata school districts.

In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the clubs at MLHS are still active, including the Key Club. It’s a service organization for students, with branches around the world.

“We are a branch of the Kiwanis,” Sam said. There are chapters at Moses Lake and Ephrata high schools, with about 70 members between the two schools. As a regional officer, Sam represents both schools.

“We basically do anything community-service-related,” Sam said.

The MLHS chapter has some continuing projects, including a highway cleanup scheduled later in September along state Route 17 south of Moses Lake. (Club members are working with Dano Law Firm of Moses Lake on the project.)

Key Club members also sponsor an annual blood drive at MLHS, volunteer for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s and as bell ringers for The Salvation Army each Christmas. Club members work as tutors for students at Lakeview Elementary, Sam said.

Some of those annual projects, the blood drive being an example, have been canceled for the school year, he said. Currently, all MLHS classes are online due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

While the Moses Lake School District is allowing clubs to keep working on projects, the Ephrata School District has postponed student activities. As a result the EHS Key Club is inactive for the time being.

People who want to donate to Key Club activities or students who want more information can contact

Sam Otey by email at ltg58@pnwkeyclub.org.