OH’s National English Honor Society (NEHS) empowered local literacy efforts by organizing and hosting a school book drive in the past weeks by working with school and local community partners to ensure the event’s success.
The book drive ran from Jan. 19 to Jan. 30, and as donations came in, NEHS members orchestrated the event with a meaningful objective.
“The purpose of our book drive is to support literacy in our communities… We’re trying to get as many books out to young students as we can so that everyone has an equal opportunity to keep reading,” said NEHS President and senior Gabrielle Baier.
The NEHS members dedicated time and effort towards coordinating the book drive, which functioned as their club’s service project.
“They have to do a service project each year,” explained NEHS sponsor and English teacher Abby Bartle. “NEHS students help sort through the books and make sure they are good to be donated. They’ve ultimately coordinated everything.”
“Our members are definitely helping us. They helped us come up with ideas for it [and] they helped pick the organization that we’re partnering with… Their main job is really to get as many books as possible,” said Baier.
NEHS isn’t alone in this endeavour; they decided to collaborate with a local community partner.
“We’re partnering with the Fox Valley United Way, a nonprofit organization in Aurora,” said NEHS Vice President and senior Isabella Ikonomi. “Their goal is to help everybody get access to health, education, and other financial opportunities.”
The partnership helps support NEHS mission in offering books to those in need.
“The board will be working together to distribute [the donated] books to the Fox Valley United way, and then they will distribute them to… different places in need of books.”
NEHS collected book donations in boxes at a variety of locations throughout the school, ensuring that students and staff had a simple donation process.
“We’re collecting books in a few different locations, one of them being room 238, which is my room, then the library, and then we’ll collect books here in the English office,” said Bartle.
NEHS mentioned that they were generally flexible with the conditions of donated books, and they had reasonable expectations in terms of quality.
“We asked that books be in good condition. They don’t have to be brand new, but they should be readable, and someone should want to read them,” Bartle added.
“We’re collecting gently used books, preferably K through 12. We’re just asking that people are willing to bring them in,” said Ikonomi.
NEHS has also worked diligently on getting word out about the book drive to OH’s community.
“We’ve had a bunch of people post on social media we have a ton of posters around the school,” said Baier.
“We asked different organizations to promote it. 42Fifty [and] BIONIC posted about it. We’ve just been getting the word out to everyone,” said Ikonomi.
With a positive initiative in expanding access to literacy, OH’s National English Honor Society successfully coordinated the book drive. As members collected donations from students and staff, NEHS understood the substantial contribution they were making in support of the community.
“The books will go to students in underprivileged neighborhoods who need more books to read,” said Baier, smiling with joy.
Editor’s note: According to NEHS adviser Abby Bartle in a press release, as of Feb. 4, NEHS donated a total of 755 books to the Fox Valley United Way.
Hello!!! My name is Jia Nair, and I am a sophomore at Oswego High School. It is my first year on the staff 42Fifty. At OHS, I am involved in BIONIC, Youth and Government, Girl Scouts, and Business Professionals of America. I also serve as the president of The Rightfully Project. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication.
