Junior Mitchell Richmond grabbed a red Christmas-themed goodie bags from a white foldout table manned by National Honor Society officers. Walking back to a table filled with his friends, he started filling the gift bag with goodies.
On Dec. 2, the National Honor Society hosted their Deck the Desks fundraiser, which aimed to surprise teachers around campus with gift bags. The event lasted an hour after school, from 2:30-3:30.
“I thought it was a really good way to give back to the teachers and a way to get my group hours for NHS,” Richmond said.
It was hosted by Key Club president, junior Brenda Maciel, and NHS president, senior Meghna Vikram. As leaders of the two largest community service clubs on campus, Vikram and Maciel planned the event because they wanted to give back to the community.
“A lot of our [usual] community activities are for underserved communities,” said Vikram, “but we also have to realize that our teachers do a lot for us, and so we wanted to kind of bring back to our teacher community.”
Students were told to bring 1-3 classroom items, such as highlighters, tissues, post-it notes, gift cards, etc., that would be distributed to teachers and staff. After all the items were sorted out, students got bags and made goodie bags for all the teachers and staff. Each student was required to make at least two goodie bags to qualify for hours.
“I brought two $15 gift cards from Target because I feel like it’s more beneficial for teachers to be able to pick out what they would like instead of just giving them a bunch of tissue boxes,” Maciel said.
As a requirement to stay in the clubs, Key Club and NHS members must meet a certain amount of community service hours by the end of the semester, so this event gave them an opportunity to get their last few hours in.
“I wanted to provide more volunteer opportunities for members within key clubs so they’re able to get their required hours by the end of the semester,” Maciel said.
Students had to sign a permission form to go, and after they did, they were required–at risk of NHS probation–to go. In addition to fulfilling club requirements, the community hours that participants received can be used for a Bright Futures Scholarship.
When organizing the event, the club presidents’ main goal was to give back to teachers and staff because they felt like students do not realize how much teachers and staff members actually do for them.
“Hopefully we can get bags packed for almost everyone on campus, just to make sure that they all have happy holidays and they feel loved and appreciated by our student body,” Vikram said.
