On Friday, March 15, Key Club and Science Club held a Badminton Tournament to raise money for the Thirst Project, an organization created to improve conditions in water-lacking regions, mainly Swaziland.

When speaking to Sage Singh, Vice President of Key Club and President fo Science Club, he stated that the event “was part of my speech last year, when I was voted in as Vice President of Key Club. I had promised to do something that wasn’t seen before, I had proposed to have a cross-club coalition for a certain community service event.” 

Through the past two years, Singh saw a lack of attendance in meetings in both Key Club and Science Club and realized that he needed to initiate something. With this event, Singh was able to bring two clubs together to make them more known to LHS.  

In this cross-club event, Singh and Ryan Stempel, along with other members of the board from both clubs worked to make this the best it could possibly be, since Singh “brought the Science and Key Club into one unified board that would discuss on the charity to be chosen, while Ryan focused on managing the rules and versing system for the games.”

Picking Badminton as the sport of choice was no easy decision. At first, “hockey was our first choice, but because of “the cost of equipment, lack of general knowledge of hockey rules within the school, and simply caused more financial issues overall. We had resorted to our backup sport, badminton, which is known to most and has fairly simple rules.”

A week before the event, Singh and the unified board “feared less participation due to the lack of teams that signed up. However, in a few days before the event, more people started signing up, and at the actual event, a total of 70 people participated in the event (35 teams of two).”

This event was overall, such a success and everyone that attended enjoyed. By the end of the event, Key club and Science Club was able to raise a total of $301 for the Thirst Project, a truly amazing cause. Aimee Chen, an attendee of the event and a member of Key Club, said “I didn’t win, but I still had a great time. I would definitely do it again.”

For the future, Singh plans for the event “to have a foolproof bracket system for the winner and losers of the event, and still make sure everyone had at least three or so matches to play.” Even though there were problems with the bracket, all who attended had a great time!