The LHS Service Club’s Growth
The Leonia High School’s service club grew considerably in size this year in comparison to the previous school year, according to longtime members of the club.
The service club is a group of active students who contribute their time and effort towards organizations and causes of local, national, and international concerns of their community. The club partakes in fundraisers and hands-on participation for causes such as the Leonia Health Fair, Leonia Day, the Special Olympics, Shelter Our Sisters, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the Center for Food Action, Toys for Tots, March for Babies, and the annual Senior Citizen Appreciation Dinner. Club participants greatly encouraged and continued to influence others to become concerned members of the community.
The LHS service club had a scarce amount of members in the school year of 2011 to 2012. LHS senior Wonjung Oh was a member of the service club since her sophomore year; she described that the club last year was “kind of a ghost.” With little to no advertisement, the service club membership was small and insufficient to healthily accomplish activities. Wonjung explained, “Membership was down to a handful of students, probably because we didn’t advertise our existence as much as we could have; people never saw or heard anything from us.” Without much recognition within the school, the service club only built up to the capabilities of the few members. In the past the service club has often been prolonged, with “too much work and too few hands.” There were frequent delays and extended amounts of time given to the club due to its lack of active members. According to the senior, the first meeting that year had only a few people to show up. However, more students began to join this school year; the service club was at last growing in size. “We’re finally getting more freshmen, sophomore, and junior members, and more regulars in general, from what I can see,” Wonjung stated. As to why there was a sudden increase in members of the service club, many students believe it was the little more effort regular members put into promoting the club to the school through morning and afternoon announcements as well as flyers.
The latest help the LHS service club has had a hand in were the Health Fair, which is held annually at ACS, the Veterans’ Breakfast, at Legion Hall, and the UNICEF Fund Collection by making routes to homerooms and lunch periods for donations. Currently, the service club has plans to assist the high school for open house on the night of November 30th. Although the service club now has a beneficial amount of members, they still encourage any student to join. Wonjung warmly noted, “New members are always welcome and appreciated!”