People in North Omaha are struggling to keep their streets clean and nice looking. They don’t know where they can get access to daycare for their children or school for them. Some need food and classes for their desired job. Due to the help of volunteers, day by day, these problems are getting more solutions for them and making life easier. 

National Honor Society (NHS), got a planned service day to Abide Omaha. It is a campus made to benefit North Omaha. The students went on April 13 to help out and give service to multiple aspects of Abide.

“We let our leadership team choose planned service days, and oftentimes depending on their interests they do different things,” NHS adviser Rebecca Holland said.

NHS students are held to very high standards and are only able to join if they get an invitation. There are multiple pillars for the NHS students to follow to stay in the organization, and members need a required amount of service hours per year, which is 20 hours.

“NHS has certain pillars so service is one of our pillars, then scholarship, so the kids have to have at least a 3.0 GPA. Then citizenship, being decent human beings by not getting referrals, having leadership, and making sure those kids have those high standards,” Holland said.

Abide Omaha is an organization that is made to benefit North Omaha, which is the inner city. Their main goal is to get rid of red lining in the community. 

“Good people can come together and do good things; this whole campus just shows how well a community can improve together,” junior Abby Kazakevicius said.

When students first arrived on the campus, they each made name tags so workers could identify them. Next, they were given a presentation on the history of Abide and its main goals. Then, they were given a tour of the campus; they got to see all the buildings, and were taken inside the gym and counseling office. 

“Right now I am at Abide Omaha and we are putting together bags with candy and flyers and we are going to go clean up the neighborhoods a little bit and give out the goodie bags so people know that there are resources, in case they or somebody they know need food or a place for their child to go for daycare and things like that,” senior Jada Logans said.

Students went through the busy neighborhoods of North Omaha and cleaned up the streets by picking up a lot of trash. After their work was finished it looked way different and more clean than before. They also passed out bags with a flier informing people of Abide Omaha and showing them all the resources they have access to, as well as some candy in the bag. Students walked up to doorsteps to deliver them.

“I like to give back to the community and I like to be able to come to communities that need more help than mine and be able to give back to them,” Kazakevicius said.

This group helps students understand the importance of community service. It builds higher expectations for themselves and the right-doing to the community. 

“I hope to see more of branching out to nonprofit organizations to help out and not just the stereotypical food pantry once a month; I look forward and I hope that we can do more in the actual community,” Logans said.