Help Us Provide a Loving Home for Georgia's Most At-Risk Children
The Georgia District of Key Club International has partnered with the Georgia Sheriffs’ Youth Homes for more than 30 years. By providing full-time residential care, the Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes give our state’s most at-risk children the love, safety, and stability they need to become mature, successful adults.
Over the course of the past three decades, we've helped build learning and education centers, a chapel, a wellness pavilion, and more. As needs for the kids at Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes arise, Georgia Key Clubbers have always been there to answer the call.
Our Newest Mission: the Key Club Herrington House
Our newest project is to help reconstruct and refurnish the children's home at the GSYH Herrington Homestead Campus in Emanuel County, Georgia. The Key Club Herrington Community House will serve as a comfortable, welcoming, and warm home for children who need it.
The Georgia Key Club has pledged $90,000 to complete the Herrington House project, and set an ambitious goal to raise $20,000 by March 2024. The money raised will go toward buying new furniture, including living room furniture, bedroom furniture, and dining tables to fill the Key Club Herrington House.
We need your help
To help meet our goal of $20,000, the Georgia Key Club Board is asking:
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All Key Clubs across the state to raise $300 for the Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes
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All Key Club members to raise just $5 for the Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes
We cannot do it without you. While $5 may not sound like much, together we can make a big difference in the lives of the children at the Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes. If each member in the district raised just $5 – we’d easily surpass our goal of $20,000 for this year and be well on our way to completing the Key Club Herrington House!
How to Donate
To help us reach our goal, you can make a donation online by clicking on this link. You can also mail a check made payable to "Georgia District Key Club" to:
Georgia District Key Club
Attn: Project Account
P.O. Box 6618
Macon, GA 31208
We deeply appreciate your help toward reaching our goal. For fundraising ideas or questions about the district project, please contact the Georgia District Key Club Projects Chair.
About Our 30+ Year Relationship with the Georgia Sheriffs’ Youth Homes
It all started in 1988, when the Georgia District Board decided that the District Project for the year would focus on the needs of the residents of a local organization that provided a loving, caring home for children that were abandoned, neglected or abused in the state of Georgia.
That year, the decision was made to make the Georgia Sheriffs’ Youth Homes the District Project of the Georgia District of Key Club. Since that year, Key Clubbers from around the state have raised more than $1 million for this incredible organization.
In 1992, Georgia Key Club decided that all funds raised for the District Project would go to build a learning center on the campus of the Youth Homes, located in LaGrange, Georgia. This center would provide a workplace for the residents to study, a facility for counselors to meet with the residents to discuss their spiritual and emotional needs, and a time for the students to lay a foundation for a successful life. The facility was dedicated in 1999 after more than $100,000 was raised to construct the learning center.
During the 1999-2000 year, Key Clubbers set out on another commendable path to build a learning center for the female residents at the Georgia Sheriffs' Youth Homes Cherokee Estates campus in Dalton, Georgia. In just five years, the Georgia District of Key Club Learning Center was dedicated after more than $115,000 was raised for the project that was known as “Ben’s Dream”.
The 2005-2006 Georgia District Board, when deciding on the next goal for the Youth Homes, realized that each of the campuses had a place for residents to go to fulfill their spiritual needs- every campus except one. It was decided that the next project would be called the “Essential Piece” as the District set out to build a chapel at the Pineland campus of the Georgia Sheriffs Youth Homes. Through the help of Key Clubs from around the state, the Georgia District broke numerous fundraising records and was able to complete the project in just 3 years. The Georgia District of Key Club chapel was dedicated in 2007, answering the call once again for the Youth Homes.
In 2009, the District Board received word that the residents at the Pineland campus of the youth homes had outgrown their current learning center- the same one that Key Clubbers built more than 15 years prior to that time. It was decided that the Georgia District would continue “Living the Legacy” and take on the challenge of raising $150,000 to expand the learning center so that each resident would have the same opportunities to succeed in life as each and every member of our organization. The Georgia District finally reached the goal and ended the “March to 150” by surpassing the goal of $25,000 and raising $60,000 during the 2013 – 2014 year. This remarkable achievement once again proved that nothing is too ambitious for the Mighty Georgia District. The Pineland campus Education Center expansion was finished with the funds raised by Key Club members.
In 2015, the Georgia District set out to build an Education Center in the Mountainview campus in Chatsworth, Georgia – a campus that sits among the beautiful north Georgia mountains but currently only has one cottage for boys. Th project was dubbed “The Foundation for Education” – and the $120,000 needed for the center was raised and completed in just three years – and concluded at the 2017 Georgia District Convention.
In 2023, Georgia Key Club completed the Key Club Wellness Pavilion at the Boys Ranch in Hahira, Georgia, after raising a total of $44,500 for the project. The Wellness Pavilion helped meet a dire need for a safe location where residents could receive counseling and have supervised visits with family members and friends. In addition, this project helped provide an outlet for recreational activities, with the inclusion of a new fishing dock and refurbished fishing dock.