New Officers

Academic Outreach: Phoebe Snydersmith

In order to be an Academic Outreach officer for the National Honor Society, it is imperative that one must be able to:

·         Work well with your partner, if given one.

·         Work well with young students, as well as teachers  in the building

·         Come up with creative ideas for new projects

·         Be willing to check up on the progress of prior projects

·         Be able to successfully locate tutors for the lower classmen

We are committed to helping others achieve high academic levels in the subjects of math, science, and English.

Our project this year was to tutor freshman and prepare them for their first final. The tutoring session was taken place in the freshman cafeteria, and right after school. Students were then paired with any freshman teacher from all subjects including NHS students. The session was held on December 18. Overall it was a great success.

Best of luck!

Administrative Assistants: Delaney Starkman

This committee does not do any projects

Time Commitment: Every Tuesday and Thursday for half of the lunch period

Duties: Organize paperwork for Ms. Walker & Mrs. Fleming & create flyers for new community or school service opportunities

Adopt-A-Grandparent: Maddie Shay and Sarah Clowers

We usually go to the Lakewood Nursing Home, but any nursing home is fine. All you need to do is talk to one of the directors and plan out a date to bring people in for an activity. We usually chose to play bingo because the grandparents love it. The director will tell you what to bring in and what time to come. You can plan these events any time of the year, and the nursing home is always very appreciative to have volunteers.  All volunteers need to fill out volunteer forms and anyone 18 or older must fill out a background check, so it takes some planning on that part. Otherwise, it’s a fun way to earn hours and become more involved in NHS.

Animal Aid: Tyler Kaufmann and Erick Calma
The Animal Aid committee is in charge of giving love to those animals that need it. This year we helped Humane Society. We collected food for their dogs and cats and helped them with the cleaning. You can get trained and actually play with some of their dogs and cats. When you get trained you can go more often and become a regular volunteer. Our outreach with Humane Society took place in the month of March. We took one day to work with the cats and another for the dogs. Since only 3-4 volunteers can be there at the same time we made different shirts for our volunteers. It was such a great experience to just give love to dogs and cats that do not have any owners.

PCHS Outreach:  Emily Haarman and Amanda Pfoser

Campus Beautification is a committee that can take place throughout the entire course of the school year.  There are no specific duties involved.  With campus beautification it is up to the committee to come up with an idea to help fulfill their two duties in order to earn their medallion at graduation.  For instance, this year our committee decided to repaint the shed by the football field as well as fix up some bulletin boards throughout the school.  There is no designated task for this committee.  The time commitment that this committee entails is entirely up to you.  Some people may be extremely passionate about beautifying the campus and may do well over the two required duties.  Some others may not do as much, however still contribute and meet their requirements.  In order to succeed with this committee you must be able to use your creativity and think outside of the box and try to improve the campus a little bit at a time.

Community Outreach: Riley Anderson and Ian Wright

When entering NHS we were told that although we are a group of students that are held to a high standard of scholarship and service, it was not our duty to stick out alone. We were told that the volunteer opportunities we create should be able to involve more than just NHS as a group but also the entire school. The two events I did were the book drive and the pop tab drive. I began the book drive after thanksgiving break from November 26^th through December 7^th in order to deliver them to Guardian Angel Woman’s Shelter for the holidays. They were collected each of the two Fridays. We collected over 500 books! We were able to label three cabinets in the English office- Children’s books, school curriculum books, and other books. We sorted the books and boxed them accordingly before delivering them. Teachers were also given the chance before we boxed and delivered to go through and collect books for their classroom library. There was no reward; I tried very hard to make this collection based on giving to the less fortunate during the holiday season. The pop tab drive I did beginning April 2^nd through May 3^rd. The pop tabs were collected and weighed weekly, keeping a chart to see which English class brought in the most, the winning class relieved a juice and donut breakfast. The pop tabs were given to Mrs. Herbst in the office and her and her husband brought them to the Ronald McDonald foundation. I chose this method since they have been working with the foundation for some time and it gave us an easy way to transfer the tabs to the proper place. Both drives were done in the same way. I put an announcement in for the morning many weeks prior with the details and also had NHS members help create and hang up posters around the school. I sent emails in the beginning of each week before I collected to remind members of the day and time and encourage coming to help for hours. The collections were done in English classes. Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Walker sent email reminders to the English teachers also. I spent a lot of time on my own picking dates that I believed would work best, contacting the appropriate people for supplies and confirmation of delivery for the items. I also created flyers that were emailed out to staff and put in the school newsletter. Both drives have been very successful and it was encouraging to hear students and teachers talk about the outcomes. The book drive may be difficult to have every year, but I hope that the pop tab drive will be able to become an annual event. I chose two large, time consuming projects but there are many opportunities as a community outreach officer!

District Outreach: Lily Calderon and Emili Mikolajzyk

Events: Indian Trail Tutoring (Tuesday and Thursday 2:55-4:00)

The tutoring event was started this year around the end of first semester. The original plan was to be able to tutor both middle schools (Indian Trail and Timber Ridge) but Mr. Rivara (Principle of IT) was very enthusiastic about the event. If you plan to become an officer for district outreach you must keep in mind that IT wants to continue the tutoring and any future officers will be highly encouraged to continue this event. It is a very rewarding experience and although it may seem time consuming, after the project has been started you don’t have to go all the time. It is also your responsibility to make sure there are at least 3-5 at the session and to not exceed 8 NHS members (as a rule of thumb). Also keep in mind that you must keep kids focused and be a positive role model because they really do look up to.

Also babysitting for parent teacher conferences falls into the jurisdiction but that is only around parent teacher conferences whereas tutoring is year-round. Keep in mind being an officer may seem like an exciting idea because you want to earn a medal at graduation but the key word is EARN. If you don’t do your part then NHS won’t run smoothly. Every officer should be able to produce some kind of event because there are about 90 members. Also don’t procrastinate and remember that there are officer meetings at 6:30am (:

Historian: Amanda Arnold and Abby Kudia

The historian collects pictures throughout the year for the pages in the large NHS scrapbook, and the trifold for the table at induction. He or she could even be responsible for the powerpoint of pictures for guests before the induction ceremony during their auditorium wait. The collecting of the pictures can either be taken by the historian themselves, or he or she can ask members to take pictures as well. The final projects that the historian is responsible for completing are for the NHS induction ceremony and should be completed before that date. The historian can also be asked to do other tasks such as display cases or special projects throughout the year.

Homebound Outreach: 

Homebound outreach is a committee dedicated to preparing beautiful gift baskets for homebound PCHS students as a way of keeping the students connected to the school.  Baskets are generally prepared around major holidays (i.e. Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.) as well as during homecoming, but the general amount of baskets prepared per school year range from 4-6.  Mrs. Austin in the freshman center NHS office will provide the number of people homebound so the right amount of baskets can be prepared accordingly.  Managing school, extracurricular activities and being head of this committee is completely possible due to the flexibility of assembling and sending in the baskets only during holidays and other school events.  Being head of this committee is fun, fulfilling and pretty simple!

Media Outreach: Luis Gonzalez

In media outreach you have the responsibility of getting NHS noticed.  You have to talk to the school newspaper each month and write a summary of what NHS has been doing. With this, throughout the year you will have to take pictures of NHS at events and meetings. Also, at the end of the year you will have to work with yearbook and share pictures to have NHS be brightly featured in the yearbook.

Shelter Helpers:  Becca Parmenter and Jesrael Leiva  

Shelter Helpers is all about serving and helping those less fortunate. We primarily schedule trips to the homeless shelter in Joliet: Daybreak. There are typically two trips per year, one in the fall and one in the spring. We have usually served breakfast in the past, but our upcoming trip is serving lunch. Shelter helper’s time commitment isn't strenuous or lengthy. You will definitely have time for other extracurriculars as an officer. The Daybreak trips take some effort to plan and organize but the experience of participating and being officer is definitely worth the time and effort. The officer must contact Daybreak to set up and coordinate the meal preparation, as well as leading and directing the volunteers in preparing and serving the meal. If interested, you may also seek out other service opportunities that reflect the core of Shelter Helpers, such as planning a trip to Feed My Starving Children. The choice is yours. Working as Shelter Helpers officer is one of the most rewarding positions of those available. If you love helping others, especially those less fortunate, Shelter Helpers is for you!

Social Campaigns: Keegan Smith and Melissa Feliciano
The purpose of social campaigns is to bring awareness and aid to issues that effect our society. Throughout the school year we will be working with different organizations to bring light to issues that aren't always put in the spotlight.

Ways and Means: Jacob Leiva and Jonelle Pratl

Definitely one of the easier officer jobs.

• Selling water bottles at graduation - May 18th there should be a sign up sheet for times for people to sell the waters at times during graduation. All you do is hand out water bottles and collect the money.
• T-Shirt Design - At the end of the year or start of next year, figure out if you would like everyone’s opinion on the t-shirts, or just make them yourself.  It is our job to create them, and make the forms for the members to fill out their size on. And with that the distributing them when they arrive.

Web Managers: Luis Gonzalez

This committee is a yearlong commitment. The main responsibility is keeping the NHS blog, pchsnhs.blogspot.com, updated. At the beginning of the year, the blog must be updated with new member and officer meeting dates, and any major events. Each week, the sign- up sheets for volunteer events in Mrs. Fleming’s room, must be checked and posted on the blog using an excel spreadsheet (the template for this is shown on the blog under the tab “Volunteers”). Also, the online sign- up should be checked 2- 3 times per week and updated on this same excel spreadsheet. The online sign- up sheet is in the form of a survey, and can be found on surveymonkey.com. The first step in this is creating a “survey” with the different volunteering events; Next, is to retrieve any responses and record this on the excel spreadsheet. On the main page of the blog, there is tab called “Volunteer Sign- up Sheet”, which is where members will be directed to this survey.  The username and password for online will be given to the prospective Web Manager.

Vice President: Mark Syrek

As VP you have to be able to dedicate time before school, during school, and after school to fulfill your responsibilities. Once a month there is an officer meeting before school, and it is your duty to lead the meeting. Also, a few times a week you have to work with the President during your lunch to log hours, help create agendas, and anything else the organization needs. Once a month there is also a meeting for all members, for these meetings you must take attendance as well as have general knowledge of NHS for any possible questions. You must also be prepared to give a speech at induction for next year’s inductees. This job requires time management as well as leadership skills. Overall, I would recommend the position it gives you the opportunity to get closer to your classmates, increase leadership qualities, and be a part of great volunteering opportunities.

President: Jaycie Ackerman

As President you have to dedicate time before, during, and after school. There is a meeting at the beginning of each month in front of the membership that you have to lead. Also, you will have to give up time during your lunch to help create agendas for the member meetings, log hours, and take care any other tasks the advisers need you to complete. The vice president helps you with these responsibilities, so you will not have to do it all by yourself. Although there are no specific service events you are responsible for setting up, you have to be knowledgeable about current service opportunities and be able to answer questions about NHS to fellow members. Another responsibility is that you have to make sure everyone (mainly the officers) is doing their job right. I would not recommend this position if you have extreme difficulty speaking in front of people because you will have to give a speech at next year’s induction and announce the graduating members at this year’s induction. If you have good time management skills and you like responsibility, you may like this office. I was able to successfully handle the responsibilities of President while participating on 2 varsity sports and WALC, so do not be discouraged if you are an athlete or a member of different clubs and you are interested in President- if you have good time management, you can make it work. Just make sure you can handle it- it is a big responsibility. I enjoyed it because I was able to meet and work with new people, as well as become closer with my classmates and participate in great volunteer opportunities.