Another Year Gone By

The 2011-2012 officers would like to express our gratitude to our advisers, our members, our school, and everyone who has contributed and helped the National Honor Society this year. We enjoyed it all, and we hope every one of you did too. This is the end of being part of this chapter for us, but for many of you, there is much to look forward to next year and the years after. We will remember that striving for scholarship, service, leadership, and character does not stop at high school. Continue to excel in all things, as we ourselves will put forth our best in college. Thank you. It was a pleasure being your 2011-2012 National Honor Society officers.

Recycling Over 2011-2012

 We would like to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who has contributed to recycling at Thomas Jefferson. Over the course of this year, the NHS has collected, sorted, and scanned over 20,000 bottles and cans. Not only are we assisting post 9/11 veterans with disabilities through the Dream Recycle Rally, but we have been actively helping the environment when we choose to recycle these bottles instead of throwing them in the trash for landfills. At the same time, we get redeemable points for our school. These points will be used for fun things next year, so look forward to it!

An even bigger thanks is deserved by those who have stayed back on Tuesdays to help separate bottles and cans, sort them into bags, weigh them, and scan them. Of all those who have helped after school, I would especially like to thank Eman, Victoria, and Felicia, whom have volunteered almost every Tuesday. Each bag brought to the school is a bag of mystery, as the volunteers have discovered. They have suffered from finding underwear, cockroaches, incredibly stinky bottles, moldy bottles, and other unknowns that have been kept that way because it would have been better to not know.

The great number of bottles we have recycled is a testament to just how many bottles and cans we are using everyday. Hopefully, it has opened the eyes of many and been a motivator to become more sustainable. Use reusable beverage containers! What we've achieved with the recycling at Thomas Jefferson is evidence that through cooperation and action, we can do something huge that benefits the community. Imagine the possibilities for next year with even more members and organization!

Until next year!

Box Tops Project Conclusion

Over the past year, Thomas Jefferson has been collecting Box Tops to give to a school or institution that would benefit from them. We amassed a total of 1121 box tops!! After separating the expired ones, we had 1076 redeemable Box Tops, exchangeable for $107.60! Thank you to everyone who have collected Box Tops throughout the year and have even collected from friends and family.

 To determine who would get these Box Tops, we had a ballot in the beginning of the year. The winner was The Baptist Friendship House. However, the Baptist Friendship House stopped collecting Box Tops and started collecting Labels for Education instead. (We encourage you to collect these independently to help the wonderful work the Baptist Friendship House is doing.) We then decided to give our runner-up, Woodmere Elementary, our Box Tops after a phone call to them. On a recent phone call, Woodmere said they don't collect Box Tops. Although I'm not so sure how informed the Miss who spoke on the phone was on this matter, I chose to call Gretna Middle, our runner-runner-up. These Box Tops are not only a financial encouragement, but they are an academic encouragement as well. Gretna Middle made its way onto our ballot because they, like Woodmere Elementary, are a low-performing school, and they are a neighboring school. Gretna Middle was extremely grateful for our contribution.

I spoke to Ms. Woodruff, advisor to Gretna Middle's Builder's Club. She said, "We really appreciate this. Our Builder's Club has been cutting coupons and Box Tops so y'all are a really great help. Thank You!"

NHS Yearbook Picture

The NHS picture for the 2011-2012 yearbook will be taken on Wednesday March 28 at the beginning of lunch. Please be there! 

February Update

It's that time of the year again! Invitations were sent out and applications have been reviewed. The new members will be honored at the induction ceremony on Monday, March 5th. Induction is at 6 pm in the school gym. Come dressed in your Sunday's best!

The large influx of new members warrants a revised meeting schedule. We gave out schedules in our last meeting, but it is also to your right under "Pages". There will be separate meetings for new members and current members as the auditorium cannot accommodate all of us at the same time.
As the school year is fast coming to completion, we have modified the leadership offices of NHS for next year.Now, with such a large number of members, we have an even greater ability serve others. To improve efficiency, organization, and competency, we are adding more leadership positions. Henceforth, in addition to each officer, there will be an adviser--one for each office. Elections were held on Tuesday, and it is with great excitement that we introduce the NHS officers for the 2012-2013 school year:

President- Felicia Lemoine
Adviser to the President- Peter Nguyen
Vice President- Tyler Ritchie
Adviser to the Vice President- Matthew Do
Secretary- Nida Farhoud
Adviser to the Secretary-Kailyn Cook
Treasurer- Darchelle Nguyen
Adviser to the Treasurer- Fernanda Morales

We look forward to the next school year!

We're in the middle of the winter and have been busily working with schoolwork, service, and of course, recycling!

We have recycled more than 3000 plastic bottles and aluminum cans! In an effort to raise awareness around the school for recycling as well as for double-sided printing, we will be making posters. If you would like to make a poster, email us or talk to Tien.

At one of our previous meetings, we mentioned recycling paper. As a school, we go through hundreds of sheets of paper a day. Paper recyclables, for us, would easily surpass plastics and aluminum cans. However, recycling paper would cost us $10 each month--the fee for a tote. Unlike with bottles and cans, we won't be involved in a program that aids us to recycle. Recylcing paper would be on our own initiative. Because we are still perfecting our system with beverage containers, we've decided to do paper recycling next school year. We still need members to help separate, sort, and scan recyclables! If you are interested in helping us, tell us! Some tasks, such as sorting and collecting the bottles from the box outside the office, only take ten minutes during the morning, lunch, or after school. This would also contribute to your ten hours of service NHS requires. Once we get a better system, we will be able to focus on other things such as paper recycling.

We hope everyone has been clipping box tops! YES, we are still collecting those for Woodmere Elementary and will be doing so until the end of the school year.

Continue to do your service hours! The ten hours needed by NHS will be collected towards the middle of the next semester, which will also be when we hold our elections for the officers of the 2012-2013 school year.

Our next meeting will be in 2012!. Check the page on the right panel over the break for an update of the dates for our meetings. Good luck on your exams (remember you must maintain a 3.5 GPA) and Happy Holidays!

Update for October

NHS will be volunteering at Lafreniere Park on October 28 for Park-A-Boo, a Halloween celebration for kids under the age of 13. For those who have signed up to go, we'll be working from 4-9pm. For more information and directions, go to http://park-a-boo.com/.

The Baptist Friendship House is no longer collecting Box Tops and is instead collecting Campbell's soup labels. If you would like to help them in their service for women and children, we encourage you to do so! However, our chapter will still be collecting Box Tops. We will be giving what we collect to our runner up: Woodmere Elementary.

$10 member fees are due at the end of the month! Be sure to give your dues to Yen Vo, our treasurer.

We have been approved as a Dream Machine Recycle Rally School! On Friday, our recycling kit came. We received a laptop, scanner, stickers, and other miscellaneous things that will help our school's endeavor to recycle. Our bins will come in later. At the meeting today, we played a video about the Dream Machine Recycle Rally (it can be found here: http://www.dreammachinerecyclerally.com/apply/) and we created a roster of members interested in staying after school on Tuesdays to scan and organize bottles. Please contact Kimberly Beckford, our secretary, if you would like to add your name to the list. The number of days/ hours we stay after school are subject to change depending on how many bottles we receive.  Hopefully, Thomas Jefferson will be receiving masses of recyclables (non-alcoholic plastic bottles and aluminum cans only please). Please encourage your peers, relatives, and all other contacts to recycle their bottles and cans at Thomas Jefferson!