The Oxford High School National Honor Society (NHS) is being revived this year with new community ser
ice and tutoring projects throughout Oxford. The class of 2024 is working to expand the NHS this year and get the whole community involved.
The National Honor Society is a group of students recommended by teachers and invited in the spring of their junior year to find community service opportunities and ways to give back.
“It is a group or community for those overachieving with a high GPA, and sort of getting all of those minds together to help better serve their community and school,” NHS histo
rian Clayton Windham said.
Oxford High School’s NHS president Navaneeth Srinath and NHS vice president Graham Sherman are working together to find new ways the group can help bring the community together. Their focus is projects outside of school.
“The president and vice president are working towards community service in the community, and then the secretary and treasurer are working with community service in our school,” Srinath said.
The society is focusing on tutoring as their form of service. They are
using this as a way to bring the community up.
“The biggest thing we are working on right now is ‘Chargers Helping Chargers,’’ NHS secretary Sneha Majumdar said. “We are trying to get peer tutoring started, not only in high school, but also in elementary school.”
In order to do this, members are working with multiple organizations. Sherman is partnering with More than a Meal for students in the elementary schools. Members of the NHS help with this on Tuesdays every week from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m..
“We go to the Stone Center and help fifth graders with flashcards and stuff they might need,” Majumdar said.
Other ways members are tutoring are helping with Freshman Football Tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and using a form to match tutors with students based on their availability and sub
jects.
“What I do is match up what times people can do with what subjects people are willing to do, and then I send out a text to both groups,” Majumdar said.
The NHS is also trying to create more community service opportunities. They are planning one large project a semester, doing more with Love Packs, hosting donation drives
for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and utilizing their new Student Ambassadors Program.
“What we have been doing with student ambassadors is trying to create events to get new kids involved,” Majumdar said. “They can all come and meet new kids or people who have already been attending the high school to give them friends or people to go to the football games with and stuff like that.”
Additionally, for the 2023-2024 school year, NHS is reinstating the Charger Award. This award is for people who have the qualities of an NHS member but are not in the club because they did not meet the requirements.
“It used to be an award that teachers would nominate students who were not in the NHS to acknowledge them for their academic achievements, and they would be inducted as honorary members,” Sherman said.
The group members are finding ways to stay involved individually as well. Many are running other service centered clubs, such as Soles4Souls and Go Green. This fosters a great deal of collaboration between those organizations.
“A lot of our members are doing their own community service, and then they’re adding on to the NHS as a whole,” Srinath said.
This NHS chapter wants their
members to show leadership, character, and service. The 2024 members are working to exemplify these qualities and spread them throughout Oxford.
“NHS strives to instill these characteristics in their members and project them onto their community,”Sherman said.
This specific group of students ishopping to grow the organization and have a larger impact than students in past years.
“We could do more with NHS,”Windham said. “I really want to encourage other people to get more involved.”
