National Honor Society paints and gifts more than 40 desks to students

Editor’s note: This article is a collaboration among Khushi Patel, Yareth Soto, and Mildred Torres, seniors at Indio High School and members of the school’s National Honor Society. Khushi serves as president, Mildred is vice president, and Yareth is secretary.

INDIO — National Honor Society (NHS) at Indio High School began an initiative to provide desks to students in need through a project called “Desks for Distance Learning.”

Honor Society Presents Desks for Distance LearningIn order to initiate the project, a search began for old furniture to use to build new desks. Turns out that IHS’s engineering CTE pathway had been building desks as a student project prior to COVID. Thus began a collaboration between NHS and engineering and our first six desks. NHS advisor, Amy Torres, personally delivered the desks to NHS members who painted them. NHS publicity committee members broadcasted an announcement on IHS social media and an overwhelming 261 desk requests were received.

NHS Vice President Torres reflected on the project as both an opportunity to give and to receive. She said, “I volunteered to paint a desk because I wanted to help students in my community who were struggling with having a proper space to work on during distance learning. The process of painting was very stress relieving and therapeutic.”

Her fellow NHS officer Soto also noted, “Being presented with the opportunity to participate in such an impactful project that would directly affect the lives of so many students was a wonderful experience. During the process of painting the desk, I not only learned a new skill – since I had never painted furniture before – but I also found that the experience was relaxing, as well as incredibly rewarding.”

Honor Society Presents Desks for Distance LearningWith so many responses, we realized that the need in our community was far greater than originally anticipated. In an attempt to broaden our outreach and help as many students as possible, we partnered with Ms. Allison Cyr at Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary School and had their students sign up to have the possibility of winning one of eleven desks. Knowing that our organization would have such a direct impact on young students who could someday be future leaders gave us the idea to create a pamphlet that would be given to each elementary school desk recipient, containing letters of congratulations and encouragement from several NHS and California Scholarship Federation (CSF) members in an effort to further inspire these young students to succeed and go on to achieve their goals.

Along with inspiring these younger students we also wanted to further motivate those in high school during these tough times. With the overwhelming number of responses received, we became aware of the fact that there were still many students who did not have a proper workspace for distance learning. Thankfully we had sponsors reach out and provide additional material and time to our organization to make this possible. Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Cyr, Mr. and Mrs. Guenther, Miss Cathy Jackson, Ms. Teri Fryer, Ms. Yolanda Mendoza, and Mrs. Leslie Gumtz-Bradley.

With their generous donations, desks were provided to an additional 34 four IHS students in need. CSF students partnered with NHS students to help paint the additional desks. In total, so far, we painted and gifted over 40 desks to students in our community since February 1 with plans to continue serving the community and creating a positive impact on the lives of students.

 

 

 

 

Image Sources

  • Loading up a desk: DSUSD
  • Finishing touches: DSUSD
  • Donated desk: DSUSD