The National Honor Society, also known as NHS, held a cookie packaging event on Dec. 16. They distributed the cookies to support staff all over State High, such as teachers, custodians, and paraprofessionals.
National Honor Society President Vincent Lafrazza-Schwartz helped plan the event, along with others. “I helped to send out emails and kind of coordinate with Mrs. Rand what the students in NHS need to do to kind of help with the cookie drive. It was both the NHS and a teacher kind of effort, we kind of worked together,” Lafrazza-Schwartz said. “Just try to coordinate that with all the officers and make sure everyone had what they needed so that we could do our part as the students.”
Lafrazza-Schwartz mentioned that over 50 members of the National Honors Society helped in the event. Some helped him plan the event, many baked cookies, and others helped package them.
The cookies were baked beforehand and brought to the cafeteria to be packaged. Then they were packed in gift boxes with ribbons and positive messages for each staff member, and delivered to the staff to enjoy throughout the break.
Those who baked cookies went all out, with flavors ranging from pumpkin spice to holiday-themed sugar cookies perfect for the break, with almost any flavor imaginable in between. “I made chocolate chip [cookies],” senior and NHS member Jessie Campbell said.
Campbell explained the importance of collaboration and giving back to the community. “I think kind of just like building up the community…give back a little bit and I think that it’s especially important for us that are high honors and stuff to make sure we prioritize other people over ourselves,” Campbell said.
National Honor Society Advisor, Jennifer Rand, shared Campbell’s sentiment and touched on why students should give back to their community and the people who support them.
“I think it’s important not just for students in NHS, but I think it’s important for all of our students to be a), engaged in [the] community, and b), to be humbly serving the people who work for us and with us. So I think this particular event is an opportunity for our students to give back to some of the unsung heroes of our district who aren’t the people who are typically receiving the accolades,” Rand said.
By the end of the packaging, they had delivered over 1000 cookies for over 100 faculty members at State High. “It was 144 [boxes] and each box got at least a dozen, but most got closer to two dozen,” Rand said.
After a successful afternoon of delivering the sweets, NHS is looking forward to more events in the future that are aiming to have a positive impact on the community.
“Well, we always have Lions’ Closet work day, [and] our peer tutoring. But we also recently had, like, an initiative… for members within the club. And one of the new ideas was a pen pal program with different local communities for the elderly, and like a program with students in NHS having a pen pal from one of those communities, and we’re trying to get that up and running in the new year, so we’ll see what happens with that,” Lafrazza-Schwartz said.
Events like these are just one way to give back to the hard-working staff at State High, and even if it’s not through a sweet treat, now is the perfect time to thank teachers and faculty for their dedication to student’s education.
