Citizen of the Week: McIntosh Senior Aayush Tadhani Takes Service to New Heights

Aayush Tadhani joined Key Club his freshman year at McIntosh High School for a fairly simple reason: There was ice cream.

“I mean, I loved ice cream, so I thought, why not go there?” Tadhani said.

Three years later, that ice cream social has taken the 17-year-old Peachtree City student much farther than he could have imagined. In July, Tadhani was elected vice president of Key Club International, the world’s largest student-led high school service organization, with more than 233,000 members in 47 countries.

“I didn’t know that we had a state level, let alone an international level,” he said.

Tadhani began volunteering at elementary school festivals, working with children with special needs, and helping at Bloom, a local organization serving foster children. Then, as a freshman, he attended Georgia Key Club’s Service and Leadership Conference and encountered Key Club members from across the state.

“It was there where I truly saw how big Key Club was because I saw Key Clubbers from around the state come together at this conference and share their love for service, their love for leadership, and like the passion that each and every one of them had to make an impact in their community,” he said.

He decided to run for leadership.

Tadhani first became a Key Club lieutenant governor, responsible for clubs across a region of Georgia. He later was elected Georgia District governor, leading the organization statewide during the 2025–26 year.

His service as governor earned distinguished status. He also received the Robert F. Lucas Outstanding Lieutenant Governor Award and the Hayden SLP Student Leadership Medallion Award.

But one of his initiatives as governor was rooted much closer to home.

Tadhani’s 11-year-old younger brother has Down syndrome.

“Special needs was a really close thing to me because my brother has Down syndrome, and I see the opportunity that he has,” Tadhani said. “But many other children with disabilities, they don’t receive the same sort of support that my brother received.”

Tadhani created a project called Ability and All, designed to bring young people with disabilities into Key Club clubs, service projects, and communities.

“Inclusion is one of Key Club’s most important pillars, making sure everyone feels welcomed, whether it be in service, making sure everyone is being served,” he said. “So that’s why I believe that when we include these children with disabilities in our service projects in our communities that we can boost their confidence and give them more meaning so they actually go out into their communities and make a difference with us.”

His brother also occupies a special place in Tadhani’s life beyond inspiring that project.

“When I think about one of the most happiest people I know, it’s my little brother,” Tadhani said. “He may not understand everything I’m going through, but I believe that even with his condition, he is truly one of the most one of the happiest people I know.”

After completing his term as Georgia District governor, Tadhani won his district’s endorsement to run for international office. He then traveled to Dallas, Texas, for the Key Club International Convention July 1–5, where delegates elected him 2026–27 international vice president.

“Serving others is what made me fall in love with this organization and push myself to do more,” Tadhani said in a statement released by Key Club International. “Every level taught me what it means to be a leader, and now I’m ready to take that to new heights.”

As international vice president, much of Tadhani’s work will center on global relations, including supporting Key Clubs in other countries and helping the organization expand into new ones.

That mission carries another personal connection. Tadhani’s parents immigrated from India, he is fluent in Gujarati, and Key Club recently chartered its first club in India.

Tadhani is considering creating an international task force that could draw upon Key Club members’ own family and cultural connections around the world.

“Since obviously in the U.S. we’re like a melting pot of different people of different backgrounds, people could reach out back to their hometowns or different connections they had to form key clubs in areas that just members on the international board may not have access to,” he said.

His international responsibilities also include supporting Key Club’s partners and charitable initiatives, including UNICEF’s Start Strong Zambia campaign, the Thirst Project, The Nature Conservancy, Schoolhouse.world, and Erika’s Lighthouse.

For Tadhani, global service begins with an appreciation for what he has at home.

“I would consider myself very lucky to be in a home with two loving parents with a roof over my head, not having to worry about where my next meal is going to come from, or not having to worry about if the water is going to turn on or if electricity is going to be on,” he said.

His parents’ stories about growing up in India helped broaden that perspective. His father is a mechanical engineer, and his mother is a software engineer.

“That really made me thankful for everything I’ve been given,” Tadhani said. “But that also made me realize that there are 1000s, if not there’s millions of people in our communities in Georgia, in the United States, or I mean even across the world that don’t have access to the same things I have.”

International service is not the only place Tadhani is taking flight.

He has spent more than three years in the Peachtree City Falcon Field Composite Squadron of Civil Air Patrol, and he and fellow McIntosh student Landon Aversman started an RC flight club at Booth Middle School. There, they work with seventh- and eighth-grade students on aviation, STEM activities, leadership, and building and flying radio-controlled airplanes.

Both Tadhani and Aversman have also been student pilots at Falcon Field.

“We just loved the concept of flying,” Tadhani said. “We love the fact that you can get in a machine and control a machine in the air, and you have to be super precise with it. But you also have the freedom of going wherever you want.”

Academically, Tadhani was a junior marshal, placing him in the top 5% of his class, and has a 4.0 unweighted GPA. He takes AP, honors, and dual-enrollment courses through Clayton State University and hopes to study electrical engineering in college.

Even engineering, for Tadhani, comes back to service.

“At the end of the day, as an engineer, you’re trying to simplify things,” he said. “You’re trying to make machines or objects that serve the needs of people, making their lives easier.”

There are college applications ahead — Georgia Tech, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and universities in California are among the possibilities he mentioned.

There are also considerably more ordinary items on the agenda.

This is, after all, Tadhani’s senior year at McIntosh, and he does not intend to spend all of it in meetings for an international service organization.

“I do have the time to hang out with my friends, go to different activities, go to different senior activities, such as like decorating parking spots or like senior tailgates,” he said.

So somewhere between school, college applications, Civil Air Patrol, teaching middle school students about flight, and helping lead an organization encompassing more than 233,000 students in 47 countries, Tadhani plans to enjoy being a McIntosh senior.

And while his responsibilities may now be international, his definition of leadership remains remarkably simple.

“Leadership is really trying to make a difference in your community and leaving the world a better place than you found it,” Tadhani said.

For a journey that started with ice cream at McIntosh High School, Aayush Tadhani has already taken service to some impressive heights.