During the months of October and November, the Rolla High School National Honor Society split up into five groups to help out different community organizations. Each group picked their organization based on who they felt passionate about helping.

“My committee worked on raising money for the new animal shelter we’re getting in town. We chose this project because it was a great way to help our community and all the beloved pets too,” senior Ariana Stanislawski said.

Along with raising money for the animal shelter through a fundraiser at McDonald’s, the students of National Honor Society also chose to fundraise for the high school’s student need account. This group of students raised money by hosting a gift card raffle.

“The NHS committee I was in decided to fundraise money for the school’s special needs account by selling raffle tickets. Not many people know about the school’s special needs account, but it is a monetary account that supports Rolla students when they can not pay for a class related fee or need a necessity. Jessica Qiu and I came up with the idea to raffle gift card baskets. Also, Alex DeBlasi and Sean Kim were very helpful with driving to local businesses and asking for donations. I think they played a very big part in the project’s success,” senior Vivi Ho said.

The third group of students decided to sell ice cream at the high school and donate their profits to hurricane victims.

“My committee sold ice cream during lunch and pride to raise money for the hurricane victims. We had to order ice cream ahead of time and get people in my committee to help sell [the ice cream],” NHS secretary Shannan Chan said.

Through their fundraising, Chan was pleased with how supportive other students of Rolla High were during the ice cream sales.

“It felt really great to help the community, especially seeing people’s generosity when they knew where the money was going. Being able to see everyone helping was very rewarding,” Chan said.

Outside of fundraising, students of National Honor Society also gave back to the community by hosting a fall festival for Choice’s For People Center in Rolla. Another group of students is currently working on adopting a road and keeping it clean.

“Our committee project is working on trying to adopt a road right now that we can pick up trash on. We chose this project because we think it’s very important to raise awareness about keeping the earth clean by going out and being a good example ourselves,” senior Krista Hilmas said.

As their community service projects came to a close, the National Honor Society is thankful that they were able to help these organizations.

“Our community gives so much to us and it’s only right for us to take time out of our own lives to give back to them with no rewards in it for us. I also think it helps shape us into better people because we’re doing these things for others needs instead of our own,” Hilmas said.

National Honor Society member Ariana Stanislawski encourages students to get involved in their community in any way they can. Any student, whether they are involved with National Honor Society or not, can find a way to become involved.

“You aren’t asked to do community service, you choose to do it. It’s the whole idea of your ‘actions speaking louder than your words’ that says a lot about a person. What you do matters, and helping out just a little can make a big difference,” Stanislawski said.