‘She’s a very dedicated young lady’

Whether she’s up at the crack of dawn posting American flags, sleeping outside in the cold, picking up trash along the highway or coaching softball, for Stephanie James it’s all done for fun and community.

The Coeur d’Alene High School graduating senior, who wants to be an registered nurse, logged 160 hours of community service this year alone. She’s immediate past president and former vice president of Key Club, a community service organization affiliated with Kiwanis.

“She’s an integral part of Key Club,” said Julie Murphey, Key Club adviser. “She did a fabulous job. She’s a very dedicated young lady. She’s the kind of person who never complains about what she has to do. She’s a team player.

“She’s a fun, bubbly, energetic person. She’s one in million,” Murphey said.

For Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Veterans Day the Kiwanis, assisted by Key Club, put up flags outside people’s homes. “Key Club has a route of 70 flags,” James said. “I’ve put up flags on our route every holiday for the last four years.” That means she has to be up by 6 a.m. to pick up the flags, put them up and then take them down again at sunset. “I had to learn all the flag etiquette,” she said.

Of all the community service activities she’s done, she says the flag program has the most impact on the community. “It makes the community look patriotic,” she said. “It shows how many people really do care about our nation. People have to pay to have the flags put up.”

James’s older sister Sarah introduced her to Key Club and started the club’s “Dare to Bear the Cold,” a homeless awareness program that James has participated in for five years. “It started somewhere else in the Midwest, and she stole their idea,” James recalled.

The first Friday after football season, volunteers collect pledges and/or pay a minimum of $5 for the privilege of sleeping overnight on the football field in cardboard boxes. “We do it in November, so it’s really cold. One year it snowed. It gets down to 20 degrees,” James said.

The overnight sleepout caps off a week of activities highlighting the plight of the homeless. Led by Key Club, the school collects products such as blankets, clothing, toiletries and shoes, which it donates to St. Vincent DePaul. This year James assisted her younger sister Laura, also a Key Club member, who was in charge of the “Dare to Bear the Cold” effort this year.

Murphey said James worked very hard on the project. “In her classroom, she brought in the most items. Not only did she get the event going, she got kids in her class to talk it up.”

During the sleepout, special guests spoke about homelessness. James said it was an eye-opening experience. “You have more compassion for the homeless,” she said.

One of her favorite activities was a Christmas party for the residents of a women’s shelter. She dressed as an elf, passed out Christmas presents and got the kids to sing karaoke. She made and filled stockings. “We do that for about 20 kids every year,” James said.

It’s the people who make community service fun, James explained.

“People in Key Club are so much fun. They make it so exciting you could be volunteering to pick up trash and you don’t care.” And, in fact, she does pick up roadside trash – four times a year with the Key Club.

“You’re with people who are having a good time and they’re not complaining. You see results. You see how much happier people are. Everyone’s better because they’ve been helped.”

For three different holidays James and other Key Club members made cards, which they delivered to patients in intensive care at Kootenai Medical Center. James is very good at crafts, Murphey said. “On several occasions if not for her supplies, we wouldn’t have done as much.”

One project that had the greatest personal impact on James is coaching. She’s started playing T-ball at age 5 and has been playing softball ever since. She’s a catcher on the CHS girls Viking softball team and plans to play softball at North Idaho College in the fall, when she studies pre-nursing. For her senior projected, she helped coach the Northwest Wildfire softball team, a community team. She started by teaching the catchers how to catch. Then she added pitching. Other people wanted to learn, so she taught them and added hitting and bunting.

“I only had to do 15 hours, but I did 101 because it was so much fun,” she said, adding it was also rewarding because she got to see lasting results.

“If you clean up the streets, it looks pretty for a couple of weeks, but then it gets dirty again. (With coaching) people get better and better.”

James recommends community service. “People should get out and do something. Anything can make a difference.”