The school year just started, yet there’s so much that as bruins we can do to help our community. We can help out by volunteering or doing services. A great example of people who do as much service as they can is NHS. NHS stands for National Honor Society. It was an organization that would encourage academic achievement while developing other characteristics. The ideals of leadership, scholarship, service and character, remain relevant to this day. NHS has been doing services for about 100 years now, from 1921 to today in the year 2021. So even though some of us aren’t apart of NHS, why should we care so much about how much service we do for our community?

Ms. Austad talks about why having the members of NHS doing service is so beneficial and says, “Service is an amazing thing. They get a happiness boost from serving other people and it helps us feel good about ourselves and gives us a good feeling. It’s essential to learn that there are other people out there other than you, and you recognise that other people matter too. We all rise when we lift and encourage each other, we all benefit from that service. If I recognize that there’s something that you need help with and I help you with that, that lifts you and it lifts me at the same time because of the service given. You just can’t go without service; it’s essential, I think, to being a good human being.” It’s not only beneficial for you, but it’s also beneficial for the other person. As an encouragement to do service she also talks about if you want to be happy, go make somebody else happy and doesn’t sound like it would work that way but it works that way. Doing service gives you a healthy outlook because you get to do things you’re not really used to doing, but you’re doing it in a healthy way while helping others so it makes you happy.

A member from NHS, Melany Hernandez, shares her experience as this being her first year being a member. She says, “I haven’t done much but I think about it from past experiences is getting to meet new people and make a new experience especially with the people you work with. I feel like you kind of develop a sort of bond because you…plant so many things together you’re doing certain things together that you end up getting along really well and I think that’s really special. Something you can gain from it is a sense of maturity from it.” A lot of people who do service can say you gain a sense of leadership from it depending on the area that you’re working in. And you gain a lot of sympathy for other people as well because you get to connect with so many people in so many different ways. We talked about the qualities that she’s gained through service-learning and how she really got out of her comfort zone which really helped with her confidence. The more and more she did it, the easier it got.

Some services they’ve done so far is recycling every Friday and staying after home games to clean up the football field. They try doing an activity or a service project once every month. An example of an upcoming one is decorating teacher’s doors later this month. Their favorite service was helping out at the Seville house but unfortunately Covid hit, they still hope to do it some time in the future again.

NHS is just one example of an organization who does service. There are other people at our school who volunteer and do service projects whether it was because of the kind of organization they were in or if they were doing it on their own to feel good. Doing it is a choice but it feels good knowing you helped someone out.