Senior Maggie Griffin’s National Honor Society secretary group plans to do a random act of kindness for the staff of here at North High School this upcoming Monday for a good cause. They’ll be baking homemade cookies in one of the cooking rooms at North High to surprise the teachers and show appreciation when they present them to the staff.

National Honor Society is a prestigious nationwide organization for high school students in the United States and outlying territories, which consists of many chapters in high schools. Selection is based on four criteria: scholarship (academic achievement), leadership, service, and character. The National Honor Society requires some sort of service to the community, school, or other organizations. The time spent working on these projects contributes towards the per-trimester service hour requirement.

I began with the Secretary, Maggie Griffin. Maggie is in her 2nd year of NHS and she has well over 50 hours of service! I asked how she got the idea, and she responded, “I don’t see people appreciating the teachers enough, so I want to do a good deed and I think baking cookies would be a good idea. I also think that baking would be an easy task that our group would enjoy”.

I also asked her why she wanted to do this. She said, “It’ll be fun and I know that the teachers will be appreciative”.

DJ Erickson, another NHS Senior in his 2nd year in the program said, “I think they’ll appreciate it a lot. Acts like that don’t happen very often and I think that they won’t take it for granted. They also know that NHS members are great kids that love performing selfless acts”.

Speaking of Selfless Acts, secretaries here at North high are supposed to develop yearly projects that their group is going to work on all year to impact the community around. For this group, Maggie said, they’ll be volunteering at the Oakdale Nature Preserve by hanging posters and doing work that they can’t do, due to the many small reasons. They’ll also be volunteering at the Special Olympics of Minnesota, helping disabled beings compete and keep a fun spirit in activities such as Bowling, Softball, Golf, and even Bocceball. Maggie’s favorite part of being in NHS is volunteering because she likes it a lot. Her favorite part of being a secretary is getting to know people closer because lots of times you miss lots of relations and relationships due to how large the full group is, so having a secretary is more intimate and fun.

To wrap up, I asked the two similar questions regarding how NHS has helped them and made an impact on their last two years of high school and what they want to get out of the experience. Erickson replied, “It pushed me to keep my grades up and continue to build my character. It’s also led me down he right path which has built me into the person I am today. I’ve done charity work my whole life and I love the feeling that I get when I help others in need”. DJ wants to give back to the community that has helped shaped his life today.

Griffin said, “National Honor Society has taught me time management, responsibility and thankfulness”. The various work she does, teaches her to be thankful for the things she has.

National Honor Society plans to keep up the heartfelt efforts to help the community and that’s what it’s all about!