Editors Note: To celebrate Read Across America Day, we decided to publish a new story about an event that happened earlier in the school year. 

In need of a mandatory project, NHS president Tia Maiden contacted local elementary schools to find volunteer events and Nitsch Elementary responded. They wanted the National Honor Society to host a book drive to donate children books for the elementary students. On Saturday, Nov. 12 the NHS organized a book drive in the Klein Forest front parking lot. Approximately 200 books were donated to Nitsch Elementary. 

“I thought they did a really nice job,” the teacher supervisor Anne Watson said. “There was a lot of student involvement. I thought it was a good bonding experience for them, aside from the fact that they were collecting the books.”

NHS members set three stations up for the event: making boxes, organizing books, and advertising with signs around the school’s perimeter. Senior Fernando Olivares worked at the advertising station and said that it was “not in vain.”

“I got a couple of people to turn in,” Olivares said. “And I donated about twenty books; It felt very fulfilling and satisfying because I know I’m doing something good.”

Senior Kim Nguyen created the advertisement posters and stopped by to donate 10 books from her collection.

“I wish the kids will be entertained by them because I remember loving those books,” Nguyen said. “I had fond memories of those books.” 

Along with the book drive itself, teachers also posted donation boxes for books in their classrooms to have other students and teachers to donate as well. In total, there were around 10 boxes of books donated. Joanna Dyess, the NHS sponsor, collected roughly 75 books in her classroom.

“Eventually those Nitsch kids will become KF kids,” Dyess said. “Nitsch is progressively improving their campus so making sure that they get books that can continue their progression and their success is good. I love books, so getting ‘small people’ to read is great.”

At the end, Nitsch administrators came to personally thank the members of NHS for hosting a book drive for their campus. The seniors took pride in helping out their community and to give a part of their youth to the next generation of kids. 

“I know how it’s nostalgic, giving those books away,” senior Mai Vu said. “It’s marking the ending of your childhood, knowing you are a senior and you are going to graduate. You’re now giving back to the younger generation to have something that you once grew up with.”