This past December, 24 members of Wilton High School’s National Honor Society participated in Project Night Night, an effort aimed at providing nighttime supplies for children in need in the community.
Lauren Hughes, coordinator of Senior Services and Family Programs in Wilton, recognized the hard work from the community.
“Students at the high school truly made a difference for families dealing with financial challenges and emotional stress,” Hughes said.
Each student purchased a variety of items, including pajamas, books, and stuffed animals, and delivered them in “whimsically” decorated bags to 23 children, ranging in age from 9 months to 11 years old.
What turned out to be a great success initially began as a simple conversation between Hughes and the National Honor Society’s new advisor Jo Gallagher, whose main goal for this year is providing members with a plethora of service opportunities aimed at having tremendous impacts within Wilton.
Under Gallagher’s mentorship, the WHS National Honor Society has been emphasizing a change in mindset, prioritizing the ideal of making a noticeable difference to improve the lives of others within the community, over simply getting service hours.
“We were exploring community service project ideas for the National Honor Society students, specifically one for the holidays,” Hughes said. “Jo suggested a hats, mittens and scarf collection, but the Community Day School is already providing that service, so I suggested a pajama collection. I provided Jo with a list of genders and ages of the younger children in the families we assist and ‘Voila!’ the project was conceived.”
Hughes could not have been happier with the results. Not only did Project Night Night help “raise awareness that there are neighbors who need help,” but it also ensured that these local families will have “festive and practical gifts.”
“It will make Christmas day a happy one,” Hughes said.
Project Night Night student leaders, Emily Johnson and Krithika Natarajan, are equally as impressed by the work each NHS member put into the project.
“I really appreciate that our members took the time to buy gifts and decorate the bags thoughtfully for each child,” Natarajan said. “Seeing all the gifts together was so uplifting … I hope that throughout the year, we can continue to bring NHS members together to help our community.”
“Being able to walk into Comstock with loads of bags felt so good,” Johnson added. She agreed the children served by social services would love the gifts, and looks forward to helping organize other fundraisers in the upcoming months that will have a similar impact on neighbors in need.
Hughes expressed gratitude for the efforts of everyone involved. “I most definitely want to say a huge thank you to all the creative and talented students of the National Honor Society for those fabulously decorated bags they delivered,” Hughes said. “The parents who picked up bags all had huge smiles on their faces.”
Wilton High School senior Bella Andjelkovic is president of the National Honor Society, and wrote an early version of this article for the school’s newspaper, The Forum.