The Junior Chamber of Commerce offers persons age 18-40 the opportunity to band together with other young adults to foster personal and business relationships and fulfill a need for individual growth and leadership development through community service.
Who can join?- Any man or woman age 18 - 40.
Who are we? - The Greater Northland Junior Chamber of Commerce was originally chartered as the North Kansas City Junior Chamber of Commerce on March 24, 1955, and has also been known as the Southern Clay County Jaycees.
What have we done?- As President of the North Kansas City Jr. Chamber of Commerce, Art Nichols with some seed money provided by the chapter waged a successful public library levy campaign in April of 1965. Realizing that public library service was needed in Clay County as soon as possible, the Library Board under Art Nichols leadership negotiated an agreement with the Jackson County Public Library District to form the Mid-Continent Public Library on November 10, 1965.
As the Southern Clay County Jaycees, in July 1992, when the school district would not fund it, the chapter had a sidewalk installed at Topping Elementary School. As the Greater Northland Jr. Chamber, we constructed wheelchair accessible picnic tables for English Landing Park in Parkville.
What are we doing? - Since 1974, the chapter has conducted Jr. Olympics—a track and field meet for area elementary school children. We host the local and sectional levels of the NFL Pepsi Punt, Pass & Kick competition.
Annually the chapter conducts Adopt-A-Family, which provides groceries for Thanksgiving dinner to Clay and Platte County families in need. We support area agencies such as Synergy Services, as well as, state and national Jaycee programs such as Access Day at the State Fair, Wonderland Camp and JCFAN.
The chapter has had award winning floats in the Snake Saturday Parade, as well as, participating in parades in Parkville. We host an Annual Benefit Show to support our projects.
The chapter meets once each month and periodically feature guest speakers. Additionally, we have sponsored a variety of personal development programs for members including motivational seminars, personal protection, CPR training, interviewing and leadership skills, and team building. The chapter also traditionally defrays the costs of members attending training offered at state and other conventions of the Jr. Chamber, which have included keynote speakers such as Dr. Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins and Mark Victor Hansen.