On March 19 , the Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honorary of Hillsdale College met with students in the National Honor Society at Hillsdale High School to take the leadership principles of both organizations and put them into action.
On May 4, students and volunteers will begin the first phase of the project, working to restore a park behind the high school.
“Our goal for ODK for this year was to move forward from just being a status symbol to actually being an active honorary on campus that promotes more than just recognition,” President of ODK senior Ben Holscher said.
The students at Hillsdale High listened to talks on leadership from Assistant Professor of Religion Don Westblade, President of ODK senior Ben Holscher, and senior Anthony Manno.
After listening to the talks, current and future members of ODK teamed up with the NHS students, applying the lessons they learned, to solve a problem they saw in the community. The problem chosen: the tennis courts in the Jim Inman Memorial Park behind the high school.
“NHS came to the seminar with a few ideas, one of which was the Jim Inman park behind the high school,” NHS President Branden Bischer said. “But we really didn’t expect it to become as big as it did. The ODK started planting seeds in our mind, and it just took off.”
For Summer Wells, Hillsdale High School’s NHS adviser, it was encouraging to see the students get so involved and take leadership positions in the project.
“It was really cool for me to see that by the time the speakers had gone and they came up with this idea, the students just came to life,” Wells said. “They initiated conversations and gave their thoughts and stepped up into leadership positions within the group. Because so many of them are really busy, I was trying to get them to move past NHS as being just another thing to do. They were a totally different group of kids when they left.”
Holscher also said that he was expecting that the ODK students would have to guide the conversation, but the high school students stepped up to the plate.
“It grew from just being a seminar, to being a launching pad for an initiative on the part of the NHS kids to not only fix up the park, but make it into a community park to take under their wing and make their own.” Holscher said. “It shows how capable young people can be when they get a vision and get excited about something and are willing to put their hearts into it and do it.”
The entire project will consist of two phases. In the first phase, much of the manual labor will be completed the May 4 volunteer day. Students and other volunteers will be landscaping, painting, cleaning out the river, and clearing brush.
In the second phase, they’ll raise money for repairing the pavillion, the tennis courts, and the parking lot; moving trees, repairing lights; making running trails; and fixing the receding grass. While the high school has set aside some money for the park, students are still looking into ways to fundraise.
“We’re hoping that this leadership luncheon will be a regular occurrence of NHS and ODK,” Holscher said. “The leaders for NHS and ODK will come together and continue to make this a launching pad for community projects for NHS with ODK mentoring them along the way.”
With a $15,000 budget, NHS is heading up the fundraising for the project. Holscher said they’re looking for more volunteers to help during phase one, and anyone interested can contact him at bholscher@hillsdale.edu.
