As the Newbery Jaycees wrapped up the 2019 year, the members in the organization stepped back and reflected on and celebrated our successes and projects accomplished throughout the past year.
As an organization in 2019, the Jaycees attempted to impact not only our community, but our members. Looking back, the group can settle on the fact that it did an amazing job at this.
The Jaycees started out 2019 with a planning session, we simply laid out goals for the chapter. Goals like grow the organization’s roster, fundraise for our statewide project, provide and support trainings for the members, host social events to ensure the organization stayed fun, and develop and maintain projects to impact our Newberry community.
In past years, the state and national organizations of the Junior Chamber have seen slow growth in membership numbers, this starts with local chapters around the state and nation aging out more members than they can replace. However, under great leadership the past few years, the Newberry Jaycees seem to buck that trend and continue to grow our roster numbers. The group has so many more community members involved in our organization over the last few years it has nearly doubled our roster.
With an energized roster of young people, the Jaycees set out to tackle other major goals. This included fundraising for our statewide project, South Carolina Jaycees Camp Hope. Camp Hope is a summer camp for kids and adults with intellectual disabilities housed at the Clemson Outdoor Lab. Since 1969, the Jaycees have helped send more than 10,000 campers “to one of the best experiences of their life,” according to one camper the chapter got to spend some time with summer. This year, our major project to support this program was the Ball Drop where the Jaycees partnered with the Newberry College Football Program to sell numbers associated with a marked ping-pong ball. This project was another success and helped the group move towards our goal as a chapter in donation to this project.
As a young professional organization, the Jaycees also try to provide leadership and training opportunities for its members. The chapter emphasized this by having it members attend state conventions each quarter, to receive training on topics ranging from financial planning, ergonomics, and ballroom dancing, to practical sessions like Roberts Rules of Order and fundraising tips. Newberry also had members attend National Conventions. This included trips to Indianapolis, Indiana and Corpus Christi, Texas. At both locations the Newberry Jaycees were not only able to collect best practices, but also work to spread the impact the organization has had on its local community.
This impact includes long standing project the Newbery Jaycees have worked with for years, including the Christmas Shopping Spree. Through this project the Jaycees raise money and donations to be able to provide a no holds barred shopping experience for children and families that could use the assistance during the holiday season. This year organization partnered with the Walmart in Newberry, as well as the City of Newberry Police Department, to shop with each kid and let them pick out what would make their Christmas the best for them. A more recent project the group worked on was the Thanksgiving Basket Drive. This project was based around raising money and supplies to complete a full Thanksgiving meal for families and individuals in need. The Jaycees worked with our community partners to collect names and distributed over 30 boxes. These included all the fixings from cornbread, yams and potatoes to a dessert and a frozen turkey. These projects let our members use their abilities to create positive change to impact the Newberry community.
However, all these projects and many more, were typically partnered with a social time with it as well. The Jaycees worked to create events that would give our members a time to relax and just enjoy each other’s company — without it being all work. Members planned a Cinco De Mayo outing, a movie night where the group watched Space Jam, an alumni luau, and a friendsgiving feast, that left the group stuffed for two days. While these were dedicated fun times, the group also had a number of fun times while still doing work — the Oktoberfest Biergarten is a great example of that. The Jaycees worked with the City of Newberry to put on a Charitable Biergarten, where the money raised went back to support projects in the community. While this took a lot of work to coordinate the setup, supply, and funds, when it came down to it, standing around with some friends serving beer was a fun time for all.
The Jaycees continued to grow and develop as an organization in 2019, but it is able to do so because of an amazing set of members. As a membership organization, the Jaycees relies on passionate volunteers to keep our vision and goals alive, and the Newberry Jaycees are not lacking these people. In fact, at the year end convention, hosted by the South Carolina Junior Chamber of Commerce, our members raked in a number of accolades, awards and recognitions.
This included Laruen Folk being awarded Outstanding Jaycee of the year, Kim Sligh winning the Helping Hand award, DJ Thompson receiving the Outstanding Rookie of the year. Courtney Berry, the 2019 chapter president, also received the Outstanding Local President of the Year award for all her hard work she provided the chapter. The chapter also won a number of awards for projects like the Outstanding Membership Project for the friendsgiving feast, and Outstanding Community Impact Project for the Kids Shopping Spree. The chapter also received honorable mentions for the Ball Drop and biergarten projects from the state organization.
In 2019, the Newberry Jaycees had a year rivaled by many other chapters and organizations; however, this hasn’t caused it to sit back on its heels. Instead, it has geared it up to continue to do better for Newberry in 2020.
We are still looking for young adults in the community that want to impact where they live, work and play in a positive way — as well as looking for way to directly impact the community through opportunities and partnerships. As the Jaycees wrap up 2019 and move forward into 2020, we are excited for opportunities to make Newberry a better place.
To be part of this impact or to find out more information, please feel free to contact me at jb.nby.jci@gmail.com. The organization is excited for what the future holds and what our members are capable of taking on and accomplishing.