New Buffalo Middle School’s National Junior Honor Society

First Annual “Book Swap” – Huge Success – 900 Books Collected!

New Buffalo Middle School’s National Junior Honor Society is on a mission to increase literacy in New Buffalo by ensuring that any middle school student who wants to read is provided with a slightly used, age-appropriate, and interesting book. 

Mr. Atkins, Academic Guidance Counselor and this year’s NJHS sponsor recalls the first meeting with the NJHS members. Atkins said “I was a bit overwhelmed; I called the first meeting of NJHS members and 25 enthusiastic, driven, and service-minded seventh and eighth grade students attended.  The students were eager to serve their community and were on the edges of their seats raising their hands to share their vision of how we could help others.  To tell you the truth, I was blown away!  We brainstormed ideas of projects and a ‘Book Swap’ rose to the top of the list.” 

The goal was to have New Buffalo Middle School students bring in lightly used books that they had already read and swap them for books that they wanted to read.  Amazingly, the word spread to the High School who donated over 450 books. Nina Gropp, a seventh grade NJHS member and one of the leaders of the “Book Swap” said “I guessed that we would collect 300 books and Mr. Atkins said that we would only get 150, but after a week when we did the final count, we had received over 900 books!”  Nina, a voracious reader, stayed after school with other NJHS students to count, sort, and categorize the heaping piles of books with their sponsor.  The books that were written at a higher grade level were given to the New Buffalo High School English Department.     

Middle School students will be welcome to pick out their favorite books during their Success period at the end of each day during the week of October 25 - 29.  The book swap will be held in the New Buffalo Middle School commons area. Students attending the swap can select a book in one of three ways. Any student who has donated books to the swap will be allowed to pick out the number of books they have donated. Students who did not donate a book can pay a quarter for each book - with proceeds going to the three oaks food pantry. Finally, students who have been unable to donate books and cannot afford to pay will be allowed to take home as many books as they want at no charge.   

New Buffalo Middle School’s National Junior Honor Society members are already planning future service initiatives. They are eagerly waiting for the leaves to fall so that they can focus on helping the elderly in the community by raking their yards.