2016 Winners

The National Honor Society (NHS) is proud to recognize the following recipients of the 2016 Outstanding Service Project awards.

	Castle View High School Castle Rock, CO Project Pine Ridge Adviser: Kaycee Semple With a poverty rate of 97%, an infant mortality rate five times the national average, and an average life expectancy of only 47-52 years, residents of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota struggle to survive. Upon learning of the Third World conditions existing so close to Castle Rock, the Castle View High School National Honor Society chapter embarked on a goodwill mission called “Project: Pine Ridge.” Chapter members, Castle View students and staff, and community members collaborated to help the children of Pine Ridge. The goal of this project was to ensure each child received a gift and, more importantly, hope.
	Hohenfels Middle High School Hohenfels, Germany Donation Drive for Refugees Adviser: Lydia E. De Jesus The Hohenfels chapter of National Honor Society led the way in welcoming impoverished Syrian refugee families to Hohenfels. Due to international events and the sheer numbers of refugees these families’ needs were great. Donation boxes were placed in the Hohenfels Elementary School, Community Activity Center, and Hohenfels High School to be easily accessible for the community to donate hand-me-down clothing items to prepare for the coming German winter. Students coordinated, advertised, collected, sorted, and delivered the donations of behalf of our community. The outpouring of goodwill during these times of uncertainty and fear made this project even more meaningful.
	Indian Hills High School Oakland, NJ Volunteer-Based Tutoring Service Adviser: Raymond Searles, Jr. ndian Hills Renee Fishman National Honor Society Chapter participates in a year-round, student-run peer tutoring program. All members take part in the service project, offering free tutoring services to between 25,000 and 50,000 individuals within three towns. Students or parents send an email to the NHS chapter’s account, requesting tutoring for a specific class. Their request is met by one of 40 tutors available in all subjects. With more than 536 hours of tutoring in 2015, the tutoring service has allowed NHS members to be active, contributing members within their school, their district, and their community.
	Maine West High School Des Plaines, IL Books for Africa Adviser: Jane Wisdom Maine West High School’s NHS chapter planned to collect 500 books for Books for Africa for its first quarter service project. After organizing a freshmen vs. seniors and sophomores vs. juniors competition and encouraging the faculty and library to donate, the high school was running out of storage space to keep the books. In the end, the chapter collected 68 boxes of 3,125 books weighing 1.15 tons, with the underclassmen collecting the most books. After organizing a fundraiser and rallying community businesses to donate money, the chapter raised $325 to ship the books to BFA’s warehouse.
	Santiago Christian School Santiago, Dominican Republic Overcoming Racism with Love Adviser: Jacob Bader The Santiago Christian School (SCS) NHS chapter dedicated themselves in partnership with “Colegio Evangélico de F.E.S.S.I.F. (Fundacion Evangelistica Y Soporte Sin Fronteras)” to address the issue of legal documentation for Haitian children. Through hard work, dedication, and a strong passion to love and serve, we hosted an international dinner and talent show and raised 75,000 pesos ($1,646 USD), which was used to acquire 53 birth certificates to legally document 33 kids and 20 adults. Additionally, the chapter reached out and connected to them personally by organizing two events for the kids of Colegio Evangélico de F.E.S.S.I.F.
	Seneca High School Erie, PA Wishapalooza Adviser: Arete Calabrese On April 17, 2015, Seneca High School’s chapter of NHS held Wishapalooza, a carnival benefitting our local chapter of Make-A-Wish®. Students from the entire school became involved by participating on fundraising teams and attending a pep assembly. After school, we transformed the gym into a family-friendly carnival with food, games, music, face painting, and a wish tree where participants wrote about what their wishes would be. In the end, we raised $6,573 for Make-A-Wish. This money was used to fund the wishes of two local boys, one with catastrophic epilepsy and the other with Crohn’s disease and Colitis.