On March 14, National Honor Society began collecting donations for Five Acres Animal Shelter for points. Seniors, juniors and sophomores are allowed to bring in items for points, and donations are to be dropped in the storage room next to room 182. Most students brought either kitty litter, valued at five points a bag, or dog food, valued at eight points for 20 or more pounds.

“One of my sophomores in NHS was asking about doing service projects, and she asked to do something for Five Acres,” senior and sophomore NHS sponsor Donna Malkmus said. “I’m hoping I get to make two more runs with a car full of donations.”

Malkmus has already dropped off one load of donations at the shelter and is preparing to take a second. Originally the deadline for donations was going to be Mar. 30, however it has been extended. Many students of all three grade levels have brought in dog food bags and kitty litter containers of all sizes. The maximum number of points that can be earned through donating is 15.

“We wanted to increase involvement in gathering food for the animal shelter,” senior NHS President Mensur Koso said. “We combines helping Five Acres with helping some of our members with the extended opportunity.”

Originally, this opportunity for points was only going to be available to sophomores, until Malkmus discussed extending it to seniors with Koso. They agreed that it would be a good opportunity for seniors who were close to meeting the point total, but not quite there, to finish up. Eighty out of the total 106 senior NHS members have reached their point quota of 90 points, with 10 of them using the Five Acres donations to get their final points.

“I brought in 60 pounds of cat litter, and it got me to my point total,” senior Marygrace Cole said. “It was a good opportunity, and also the animals need the food. They have to pay for the stuff to care for them, which can get expensive, especially when it’s all volunteer work anyway. Someone has to help care for them.”