National Honor Society’s service component requires each member to complete 15 hours of community service a semester. Junior Ashley Lauver, an NHS member, created the club South Helping Our Community, or SHOC with a simple mission.

“My biggest goal for the club is just creating a place where we can go out into the community and do better,” Lauver said.

Lauver hopes to encourage students to ‘do better’ by organizing service opportunities in the Kansas City community.

“Last year I saw that a lot more clubs were going out to volunteer, but not regularly. Now I’m a junior and I realize people are looking for NHS hours, and I’m like ‘a lot of my friends actually have no idea how to actually go out and get hours,”‘ Lauver said. “So I wanted to create a place where people could come and be given those opportunities without having to do it themselves since a lot of people don’t know how.”

Lauver is involved in Girl Scouts, an activity she says has helped her with the organization and communication required from the leader of a community service club.

“The things that I’ve done with Girl Scouts, I now have better connections with places and I know how to get there,” Lauver said. “Same thing with youth group. I’ve been to places with my youth group, so now I already know these people and I can contact them and be like ‘hey can I come back, but this time with another set of people?'”

SHOC is currently working on a drive for Children’s Mercy Hospital. The drive is tentatively planned for April, and will include encouraging students to bring items from the hospital’s wishlist to their first hours. The first hour that brings the most will win a doughnut party.

Past service trips have been to Safehome and Park Meadows Senior Living. Lauver plans to bring a group of students to Harvesters later this year.

“I joined [SHOC] because I’m in seminar with Ashley and she was telling me about it. It sounded like a really good way to get involved in the community. And I’m also in NHS, so I could get hours from it… Safehome was really cool to see like, kinda what people in the community are going through that you don’t see every day,” junior Dottie Powell said.

Lauver says that exposing students to need in the community betters everyone involved.

“When students go out and get involved, it creates a drive in students and the community to better itself,” Lauver said. “Cause when older people see younger people go out and do things that are good for them, they think ‘hey maybe if these people are doing it, maybe I should do it too.’ There’s always room for improvement.”
Meetings are always announced on the announcements and are one to two times a month, after school in room 353.