Serving youth has been a part of James Rhodes’ life for many years. Now a student at Iowa State, James wants to continue his work while giving other students the same chance he had.

Optimist International is an organization that focuses on helping youth be successful all around the world. The organization started in Buffalo, New York in 1911 and has finally made its way to the Iowa State University campus.

“I was a charter member of the JOY club in my hometown, which is junior optimist and rose to president of that and secretary treasurer of the district, so I’ve been around and been experienced with it,” said Rhodes, a finance student at ISU and president of the Iowa State University Optimist Club.

This experience led Rhodes to attend an Optimist International Convention last year in Cincinnati where he approached multiple people about the possibility of starting an Iowa State University branch. Rhodes’ motivation for starting the ISU branch was simple.

“I feel like giving people the opportunity to succeed is better than trying to take care of them later on. I think if you start them young and get them a better opportunity, it helps them more than trying to get them when they’re down and trying to bring them back up,” said Rhodes.

In the 100 plus years that Optimist has been an organization it has seen its scope of service continue to grow. On a per year basis, Optimist International has more than 65,000 service projects. These projects cost Optimist more than 78 million dollars and serve 6 million youth directly. The events vary from educating youth about the Internet, to putting on a ten-day junior golf program and various other activities.

“I’ve done stuff like using our club funds to purchase backpacks and filling them with like toys and books and stuff and giving them to emergency crew vehicles. So every time there was a child involved in a domestic dispute or a fire or something like that they can pull them aside and give them this backpack and keep their mind off of things,” said Rhodes.

Although Optimist has been around since the early 20^th century, Rhodes says that the club is still relatively unknown.

“One of my main goals was to stop the question of ‘what is Optimist?’ I want everybody to know what it is by the time we get up and running,” he said.

Another goal that Rhodes had for the organization was to partner with organizations such as United Way and the Boys and Girls Club to expand their reach.

“We can help them by providing membership and bodies to help do stuff and it would give us the opportunity to get out and do things that we wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to do,” said Rhodes.

Students who want to get involved in Optimist Club at Iowa State should keep their eyes open for events within the next few weeks as Rhodes said the club is looking to get an event going in April.