This year, National Honor Society initiated a school-wide book drive for San Jose school districts. For the year-long project that took off during the holiday season, the projects team wanted to spread the gift of knowledge.

Project team officer Harris Zia acknowledges that the most difficult part of the process was coming up with the initial idea.

“We were looking for a project where we could give back to the community,” project team officer Harris Zia said. “Since we wanted to give something to others that we were fortunate to have, we chose books.”

From November to March, NHS set out boxes in the library, encouraging its members to donate books ranging from preschool level to 6th grade.

“Knowing that there are many underprivileged school districts that do not have the same resources as we do, we decided create a holiday book drive that eventually extended into the first quarter of this year” NHS president senior Spoorthi Davala said.

Junior Sarah Chefka, also an officer of the projects team, contacted the administrations at various inner-city San Jose elementary schools that were limited in resources because of minimum funding.

Davala said that during the donation process, NHS’s goal was that these books would help students in the San Jose School District and give them the opportunity to read and expand their knowledge.

Eventually, NHS book donations reached up to more than 100, as members regularly dropped off stacks of children and elementary school level books into the bins. The books will be headed to San Jose School District’s PTA where they will be distributed to the schools in that district.

The Book Project is a great initiative because education is the pathway for economic advancement,” treasurer junior Shivani Komma said, “Reaching out to inner-city kids and providing them with books is something we can do on a small scale to support this cause.”