Circle K Club, a university organization in its second year, is looking to recruit new members who enjoy giving their time to help others, especially children.

Bryan Dunn, club president, described a Circle K member as somebody of strong character who cares about service to the community and school.

The club hopes to attract freshmen who were involved in Key Club in high school and wish to continue their participation in college, Dunn said.

“I decided to join Circle K because I was affiliated with Key Club … in high school and really enjoyed being part of the organization,” Allison Pierce, vice president of Circle K Club, said.

The club plans to set up tables at Presidential Court and around campus to give out information.

“We’re open to everybody,” Dunn said. “I think right now we have very different types of people in the club.”

This year the club is going to focus its service on local schools, Pierce said. It had a successful past year by raising money for an elementary school with the Scholastic Book Fair at the UC Plaza. Because of this fundraising effort, the school was able to add more than $1,000 in books to its library.

The club sets up projects each month that members can attend and that it is working toward cooperating with other Circle K clubs to do a bigger interclub project, Dunn said.

Circle K Club is a relatively new organization on campus, starting up last year. Dunn wanted to join the university-equivalent of Key Club and found that UT did not have one.

By contacting the Kiwanis club and spreading information through e-mail and word of mouth, Dunn was able to organize Circle K, which is now an official UT student organization and on its way to recognition as part of Circle K International.

Dunn said Circle K has about 30 to 40 active members. It has more than 12,000 members on more than 500 campuses in 15 nations in North and South America, the Caribbean, southeast Asia and west Africa.

Kiwanis International organizes and sponsors Circle K International, Key Club International and Builders Club. The primary goals of these organizations are to help children and to develop their members into responsible citizens and leaders.

To find out more about Circle K Club, e-mail [email protected].