Knights of the Neighborhood offers engaging community service opportunities for students
Every Tuesday from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. various students trickle into B-13 to meet for a Knights of the Neighborhood club meeting.
Numerous clubs are offered at Loy Norrix, such as Green School, Book Club, and Link Crew among many others. With the wide array of clubs available, it’s easy for some newer clubs to be overlooked, Knight of the Neighborhood.
Knight of the Neighborhood was started last school year by its three captains: Ava Ritenour, Fletcher Haase and Macy Daniels. Teacher advisor Blake Derhammer has been supervising the club for two years.
“Being an advisor is super easy on my behalf because of how hard Fletcher, Ava and Macy work to maintain the club. They work really hard to find new ways for our members to volunteer and give back to the community,” Derhammer said.
Knights of the Neighborhood is available every Tuesday after school from 2:30-3:30 p.m. The club is a way for students to get together and serve the school and community for volunteer hours.
Senior Ava Ritenour, co-captain of the club, emphasizes the role of the club, as well as the type of student that the club is geared towards.
“Our club is a volunteer opportunity for students,” said Ritenour. “It’s also for people who have a busier schedule and don’t want to commit to something like National Honor Society or Key Club.”
National Honor Society (NHS) and Key Club are extracurricular opportunities offered at Loy Norrix that similarly involve volunteering. However, unlike Knights of the Neighborhood, there are requirements to join NHS and Key Club.
“Going around the school and looking at the other clubs, we saw that there is not an opportunity to get volunteer hours or have the opportunity to do fun things, other than NHS,” said Co-Captain Fletcher Haase. “You can do things, but you have to be in that club for a while. Or with Key Club, you have to pay to get in.”
Knights of the Neighborhood does not require volunteer hours, unlike other groups; for instance, the Scouts which require an average of 50-200 hours of volunteering.
“I’m in Scouts, and for ranking up, you need volunteer hours,” said freshman Savannah Smith. “We do some but not that much, so I joined the club because I need to get more.”
One thing that separates Knights of the Neighborhood from other clubs is the opportunities that its leaders provide to students in their club.
“Something we do differently in our club is we take our club members out on field trips to the SPCA,” said Ritenour. “We even did a parade, and we made sure our members had transportation to each event.”
Not every club meeting is the same, every weekly meeting has a different focus.
“A typical club meeting depends on the week, usually the first and last weeks of the month we have a meeting in Mr. Derhammer’s room where we talk about our plans for the month, or we go over how our month went or what we could improve on,” said Ritenour. “We always provide snacks, and, usually, if we aren’t volunteering, we have a project for our students to work on.”
The club goes to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) regularly to volunteer, where the members spend an hour interacting with the animals. Half of the members walk and play with the dogs outside, while the other half play with cats and kittens. The members rotate between cats and dogs.
“Some weeks we go to the SPCA to volunteer to walk dogs or play with the cats, but other weeks we could be going downtown to do trash cleanups,” said Hasse. “One time we worked in the parade, doing stuff to get our name out there. We also do cleanups around the school, we make boxes for things [recycling] to collect.”
Volunteering at the SPCA isn’t just a volunteer opportunity, it’s also an opportunity for students to have fun.
“The SPCA is one of my favorite ones to do because I get to interact with animals,” said sophomore Augustus Johnson-Davis. “I was also in the parade. I was in the back making sure the float was stopped.”
Fun opportunities like working with the SPCA or attending parades are available to all Knights of the Neighborhood members. Regardless if volunteer hours are needed or not, the organization serves as a low-commitment club that has opportunities for everyone.
