HELP WITH CLOTHING DRIVE — Buckeye Local High School National Honor Society Vice President Jaelee Thompson, left, and Co-President Cai McKeever are organizing a clothing drive this week to create a school thrift store for students. Items will be taken until Friday and offered at a low price while excess goods will be donated to students or the local Salvation Army. -- Contributed

CONNORVILLE — The Buckeye Local High School National Honor Society is making an impact by undertaking a series of community service projects this year.

The 29-member student organization is following this year’s service theme of “Making an Impact” by reaching out to help its school and local community. The group is currently heading up a clothing drive to develop a thrift store at the school through Friday.

Adviser Alonna Morrison said NHS Co-President Cai McKeever and Vice President Jaelee Thompson are organizing the effort. The group is seeking clean, gently worn items to benefit the ongoing PRIDE campaign to update and beautify the school. Among the upgrades are replacing flags on poles at the school entrance, adding more safety film designs on the first floor, placing a lighted sign at the front of the building and revamping the media center into a student lounge to use as a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports reward.

“It’s really more of a student thrift store, but we’re trying to keep prices low and will be donating any unsold items,” Morrison said. “We are holding a drive through Friday to collect gently used clothing from students. We are not accepting socks, undergarments or inappropriate clothing. We will then price all clothing and sell it in a thrift store to our high school students at low prices. Any funds raised go to the PRIDE campaign, and any leftover items will be donated to students who need them or a local Salvation Army.”

NHS members will sort and price the clothes, and the store should be open around Dec. 14-16. She added that McKeever and Thompson researched how to complete the project and discussed details with the members. The thrift store will be open at the high school for students only. Clothing can be dropped off to any teacher, but organizers are mostly taking donations from students.

“Jaelee and Cai have done a fantastic job in leading this project. They researched all the details, wrote a letter for the (school) app, teachers and announcements, talked to our principal about the project and spoke with one of our teachers to help make posters to advertise. Cai, Jaelee and our other NHS students will help out by collecting and counting donations, helping to price clothing and working in the thrift store. This is one of the more detailed projects we’ve done, and I’m excited to see how it turns out. ”

The clothing drive comes on the heels of a holiday food drive which wrapped up Dec. 2 and gathered more than 400

items for the Smithfield Food Pantry. Morrison said that collection began Nov. 28 and included nonperishable food items and personal hygiene products such as toothbrushes and deodorant. It was among a series of community service projects the student organization has completed, including a toy drive last year for WVU Medicine’s Pediatrics Unit at Wheeling Hospital, a collection for the Jefferson County Humane Society and Christmas story times at the elementary schools. This fall, students also painted at the district office and added some Panther art to the walls for school pride, plus they volunteered at Buckeye South Elementary’s Fall Festival.

Morrison said that a blanket and toy drive also are possibly in the works, and everything ties into this year’s NHS service theme of “Making an Impact” –something her group has definitely achieved thus far.

“This year, NHS has 29 members, which is the largest chapter we’ve had in a while. I think that our NHS members have a lot of fun with these projects. They get to choose and design almost all of our projects, so they have a lot of freedom to make decisions, and they do a great job at showing leadership,” she continued.

NHS is a national organization that recognizes students who demonstrate outstanding scholarship, leadership, service and character.