Trying to make a difference not only in our community but outside the city limits, NHS took on making 15 tie blankets for the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester Minnesota.

Making the blankets for the Ronald McDonald House not only helps others but it also brings the NHS together as a whole.

“It definitely brought us closer together. Any activity that you do in a group helps and definitely brings people together. But this one definitely brought us all together,” said NHS member David Becker. “We struggled through it, but then we all also really like helping people so it was kind of a fun thing to do.”

President Haylie Schmidt came up with this idea for service hours.

“My Nana actually contacted me about this opportunity. One of our friends that we have in Eau Claire was looking for people to donate tie blankets to the Ronald McDonald House. So she let me know about it, and just told me that it’d be a really good idea for NHS,” said Schmidt. “So I took the idea to the club, and there’s a lot of interest in it.”

This not only impacted the children at the Ronald McDonald House, but also the members of NHS that helped make the blankets.

“A lot of our members were really excited because this can be a very impactful thing not only for the kids but also for the parents of kids,” said adviser Ashley Wright. “It’s always really exciting when somebody who you don’t know goes out of their way to do something kind for you. So a lot of our members were excited to partake in that.”

Making tie blankets by cutting and tying the fleece, made the NHS members feel like they were making a direct impact for the children.

“It made me feel good.It was a little bit of a different experience. I’ve tried to make differences in the past,” said Becker. “Before in other things I’ve done I haven’t really felt like there was that direct help, but with making the blankets, I can really feel like while I’m giving them something physical, I’m really helping them out.”

Coming up with service hours for the club may be stressful. Now knowing about this activity may cause many to think about other community service ideas.

“I think that this got a lot of people thinking outside the box of ways that we can contribute to the community not just within our school but outside of it. So we have some other ideas that we are working on to get the ball rolling for more community-wide service projects,” said Wright.

As the president, Schmidt has to come up with a lot of ideas for different service ideas. This may cause stress.

“I definitely wanted to make sure that this is something that was right for the club and would give other people an opportunity. So as the president, it’s kind of my job to find different opportunities for the club. So it’s really important to me that all of our members get their hours. So to keep looking for these opportunities and to see if people like them can kind of be a little bit of a strain just because you’re always just continuously looking for opportunities,” said Schmidt. “You want to make sure that people want to do it. So finding things that your club members want to do can be a little bit of a struggle, but we’re lucky to have a really good group of people that want to participate.”

Making the blankets was very special to the members and made them feel like they were making a difference.

“I think that this just honestly made our members feel really good and helpful. A lot of the ones who did it had a lot of fun with it,” said Wright. “It was also special to them because of the cause that it was going to.”