By Lauren Schiller
Leader Student Writer
This holiday season is unlike any other, yet the students of Oxford High School’s National Honor Society are still full of the giving spirit.
Each year, Oxford’s NHS’s main service project is providing free tutoring for students throughout the Oxford school district. NHS is still offering tutoring services this year, though, like many things, the sessions are now conducted over Zoom. Currently, there are about 36 NHS members tutoring an Oxford student.
Spearheading the tutoring initiative is this year’s NHS Vice President Alexa Baker, a senior at Oxford. She is “doing a wonderful job keeping our tutoring service alive,” said Josh Budden, an English teacher at Oxford High School who is in his 10th year as NHS advisor for the Oxford chapter. Baker said her role consists of communicating with “parents and students to get the appropriate assistance needed for the students in our community.”

For Baker volunteering is special because it “creates an environment that gives back to those in need.” She believes maintaining NHS’s tutoring service to be “valuable especially during unpredictable times because students are still needing academic guidance.”
NHS tutoring is available for any student in the district at any point during the school year.
The NHS has also shifted how it’s approaching other service projects. “Usually, we provide services for our community. We volunteer for events organized by others,” Budden said.
However, due to a reduced number of volunteer opportunities throughout the community this year, the NHS has rolled out a new way to serve: Passion Projects.
These are individualized service projects designed by NHS members which allow them to draw on “their own unique skills and talents,” said Budden. They enable NHS members to continue to serve the Oxford community in ways they are truly passionate about.
According to Budden, a lot of Passion Projects are “in the planning phase now” but he’s hopeful that NHS “will produce some nice things which will help our community and promote our core values (these core values are scholarship, leadership, service, and character).”
One Passion Project in development is the brainchild of senior and NHS Secretary Ellie DiMalanta. Her goal is for her team to write a letter of gratitude to each Oxford Staff member “for all the work they have done for us to have an enjoyable and beneficial school year throughout the pandemic.”
DiMalanta realizes the importance of service. “Right now, the world seems to be in the midst of chaos, confusion, and division. Throughout all this I feel that it is especially important to provide a sense of unity and peace through simple, but impactful acts of service.
“Service is about lifting up the hearts and minds of our community, not about the attention or size of the event,” she said. A truth which has become important to remember as COVID has forced many service projects to take place on a smaller scale.
However, as DiMalanta and the rest of the NHS members know, smaller scale doesn’t mean smaller impact. As Budden says, “Everyone can serve their communities by reaching out and making people smile and spreading positivity, making sure people know that we are all in this together and we are all here to help.”

  Lauren Schiller