Why wouldn't anyone want to become a Jaycee? As a Jaycee you are involved in your community, have friends, get to help people and have the opportunity to improve your career.

I've been a Jaycee for almost 15 years. My only regret is that I didn't join earlier. I joined when I was 35 years old so I only had five years as an active Jaycee. Since I am now 51 years old. I have been an over age Jaycee or, in Jaycee lingo, a rooster for 16 years. Man, I've been a rooster three times longer than I have been a Jaycee.

Why do I stick around? In what other organization can you have so much fun and help people at the same time? I'll never forget a Jaycee meeting at the end of my first year as a Jaycee. At the end of a Jaycee fiscal year, all of the money that they make less chapter expenses is given back to the community.

At this meeting my chapter, the Palatine Jaycees, gave back $25,000.00 to the community. No less than a dozen community groups and individuals showed up at this meeting to collect their checks. I have never seen so many tears and thanks in my life.

And fun, Palatine has over two hundred members. I can't walk into a grocery store without running into a Jaycee. My current circle of friends are Jaycees. Besides Jaycee events, I play on a pool league with Jaycees, I go to Bear games with Jaycees and most of the parties I go to are with Jaycees.

The Palatine Jaycees' biggest event each year is our Fourth of July Festival. The festival is four or five days of uninterrupted madness. Eighty percent of the chapter members are involved and we go from early in the morning to very late at night. We run the whole festival from the music to the fireworks. It's extremely intense, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's that much fun.

One of the areas that the Jaycees are structured for is leadership training. In the Jaycees, leadership training is more than becoming an officer, although that is training in itself. Every project that is run requires a P & L statement, manpower and planning. Can you imagine putting Palatine's Fourth of July festival on your resume? "I was chairperson of a project with over a $100,000.00 budget, coordinated manpower for 160 volunteers and generated XXXXX profit
for the chapter." That is the kind of job skill that most employers would kill for.

The Jaycees are extremely important to my career even today. I currently am the Public Relations Director for the Illinois Jaycees. As PR Director I work with the chapters throughout the state teaching PR and I write quite a few releases. Writing releases on a regular basis keeps your writing skills sharp which is important in my business. Plus I am developing quite a few press contacts which will also help me in my career.

In fact my business, AP ltd. would not be the company it is today without the Jaycees. Ten years ago I met a guy at one of the meetings that asked me if my company would be interested in working with him in developing Internet sites. Thanks to that meeting our company now thrives as a leading developer of Internet sites.

Friends, career and personal enrichment...what else can you ask from an organization? I can't imagine what my life would have been without the Jaycees. My life is that closely tied to the Jaycees. I'll ask again. Why wouldn't anyone want to become a Jaycees?