The University of Guam’s Blue Key Honor Society plans to donate resources to St. Dominic’s Senior Home for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays on Dec. 2.
St. Dominic’s Senior Home is a nursing home for the elderly located in Barrigada.
The members of the honor society will be gathering hygienic products from the public then donating them to the nursing home.
The members will also be preparing meals and distributing it to the residence.
Althea Tapales, president of Blue Key Honor Society, stated that their main focus is to interact with the residents to share the holiday spirit with them.
Blue Key Honor Society is a University of Guam-affiliated student organization that started in Spring 2015, recognizes college students at senior institutions of higher education for balanced and all around excellence in scholarship, leadership and service.
“This club exists to expose the significance of community service, help improve and solidify students leadership skills and provide the students to network with other students of diverse majors and educational backgrounds,” Kim said.
Students who are eligible to become members of Blue Key Honor Society are those who possess leadership skills, integrity in student life, high scholastic achievement, and a willingness of engaging in service to others.
Partaking in community service similar to the service of giving back to St. Dominic’s Senior Care Home is one of the many things that this organization offers students.
“Blue Key Honor Society is unique in that it recognizes upper-class men at colleges and universities throughout the nation for an exemplary and balanced record of achievement inside and outside of the classroom,” Tapales said.
Ji Kim, the society’s vice president, said the organization also plans to donate canned-goods to the St. Dominic’s Senior Home.
“This is a great way to network and build friendships among their members and the community,” Kim said.
Ronald McNinch, Ph.D, UOG associate professor of public administration, is one of the advisors of the organization.
McNinch stated that, “the students control and plan almost all aspects of the organization and they generally make a schedule service for the whole year.”
Tapales said they chose work with St. Dominics because many of the residents there tend to run out of supplies and their family members are too busy to stop by and help them restock.
“During the holidays, the residents tend to get lonely, so we decided to spend some time with them to spread the holiday cheer,” Tapales said.
Blue Key Honor Society’s main goal is to benefit its members by promoting pure selflessness, which is a key symbol to the overall motto of the club.
Tapales stated, “Poverty has always been an issue that our era persistently struggles to rid of. During this time of transformation, I thought that it was a good idea to establish a society here in campus that assists with the unprivileged or unfortunate.”
The members hope that by continuing to do partake in community service events, they would see more interest in the student population to join in and help the cause.
If any student is interested in joining the club, they can contact any of the organization’s officers for more information.