Happy happy Holidays, Warriors! With the recent arrival of utterly atrocious morning temperatures and occasional bouts of seasonal cold spells, North Atlanta’s made all the signs that it’s ready to welcome December with open arms (and a buttload of tissues). With winter finally knocking up a storm, school constituents and student leaders are on the prowl to find the ideal way to wrap up the semester. During these next precious moments that mark the grace period between break & final exams, representatives from major clubs, performance groups, and even pathway courses are dedicating time to decide on the perfect end-of-year “parting gift.” And while it’s not exactly your standard paper-bagged & sparkly-bowed package, most groups aim to gift our school the exact same thing: goodwill.
Unsurprisingly, the integrity of ‘charitable holiday spirit’ resonates with all members of North Atlanta, and for one group, this holds especially true. North Atlanta’s National English Honors Society (NEHS), the newest of the titular ‘honors groups’ and a leading front on North Atlanta’s charity efforts this season, collaborated with the National Honors Society (NHS) in order to pioneer a winter book drive for the Children Read Atlanta organization. NEHS is an honors literary group that focuses on scholastic cultural and social enrichment through open book talks, history pieces, poetry, and other forms of English engagement. It’s currently sponsored by IB Literature & TOK instructor Erica Hiers and presided over/founded by seniors Alex and Nate Pugeda. The club’s inception, around 2023, has made it challenging to fully facilitate large-scale projects, but they’ve managed to accrue a number of books (and counting) for their cause. “It’s a wonderful cause,” President Alex Pugeda said, “it’s great that we’re able to work towards such a meaningful goal this season.”
Warriors can find tastefully decorated boxes littered around campus, conveniently located outside of English class doors, right underneath posters that read “The Gift of Giving.” The drive’s projected to end by the week prior to the 1st, and the composite goal (as of Monday) is around 200 books. As of current, proceeds are limited to children’s books- including (thoroughly vetted) YA novels- and informative nonfiction in the form of recollections, memoirs, and poetry collections. NEHS and NHS have encouraged students, teachers, and faculty alike to donate whatever they can afford, and given seasonal facilitations, books (alongside other gift-adjacent goods, such as children’s toys, clothing, and canned food) are becoming pretty scarce. But in lieu of mass disposing or donating to an outside charity, “The Gift of Giving” encourages Warriors to go to the heart of the cause and contribute to the National English Honor’s Society’s inaugural season initiative.
