Junior Honor Society collects for Uzbekistan

The National Junior Honor Society at the Havre Middle School has been collecting school supplies, but not for school in Havre.

The honor society is collecting supplies to send to schools in Uzbekistan. Karen Nave, the advisor for the society at the middle school, said that when HMS teacher Judy Wolfe returned from her two weeks teaching at Uzbekistan, the honor society was impressed by her talks about the lack of basic supplies at the schools.

Nave said she talked to Wolfe about collecting school supplies to send to the schools that Wolfe taught at in the country, which is north of Iran and Afghanistan, and they decided it would be a worthwhile project.

"We thought it sounded like a good idea," Nave said, "and (the students) thought it sounded like a good idea."

The honor society collected various supplies to send to the village of Kizelputuc last week. They were asking people to bring in writing paper, construction paper, pens, pencils and markers, scissors, glue, craft supplies, any kind of school supplies.

All of the students at the school participated in the drive, with the members of the honor society coordinating the drive. Nave said they will continue the drive through the end of the year, at least, to try to raise more supplies for the Uzbeki schools.

When Wolfe returned from her trip, she said the lack of supplies was one of the things that impressed her the most. She taught in Uzbekistan under the 2000 United States-Newly Independent States Awards for Excellence in Teacher Education, administered by the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS and funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State under the authority of the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, as amended.

Wolfe said the students at the schools were good students, and the schools did a good job, but they were little more than rooms with desks. She said they generally didn't have paper, pencils, or even books. The goods collected by the middle school chapter of the Junior National Honor Society is an attempt to supply some of the materials U.S. students tend to take for granted.