Every Tuesday during the school year, members of the Newtown High School Peer Leadership club meet and plan different activities around interests or passions of club members. Recent projects have spread the club’s support locally and further away.

Recent club projects included holding a holiday bazaar at the school the week of December 3, which helped fund future club endeavors, and hosting a gift wrapping campaign at Danbury Fair Mall to raise money for Habitat for Humanity on December 7.

NHS educators Kristin Violette and Jill Gonski are the club’s advisors. According to Ms Gonski, the club began the year by holding a club fair to help introduce students to all the available clubs at NHS. There are roughly 20 committed members in the club this year, and each student is encouraged to plan his or her personal projects.

One recent project by NHS freshman Mia Hochstetler included asking every student at NHS to participate in sending messages of support to a school impacted by October’s Hurricane Michael. The project had students, while attending one day’s morning advisory period, write inspirational messages on paper hands, which Mia thought of as a way to send a Thanksgiving-timed message, as the paper hands were also paper turkeys. Mia explained in a recent e-mail that she remembered supportive messages sent to Newtown following 12/14, and she wanted to help another school in a similar way.

“I thought it would be really special if our high school helped another high school because it shows people their age are aware of their situation and are reaching out to support them,” Mia wrote in her e-mail.

She called her project Hands of Hope.

“I was really happy that our school was so supportive to my project and excited to help others. The day after, I picked up the turkeys and looked them over with Peer Leadership. I mailed them that following weekend,” Mia wrote.

She sent the messages of hope to J.R. Arnold High School in Panama City, Fla. On December 10, she received news from the high school that the Hands of Hope were put on display as part of welcoming the school’s students back to school for the first time since the hurricane.

According to Ms Gonski, Peer Leadership students are already working on ideas for projects for the remainder of the school year.