GreatNews.Life Student Voices: New Prairie High School’s holiday drive brings joy to those in need

What’s recently happened?

New Prairie High School (NPHS) has a variety of clubs and extracurriculars focused on giving back to the community, and the National Honor Society (NHS) is no exception. For the past two years, the NHS has been giving back to the community during the holiday season through toy donations.

Members of the NHS pair up and are assigned an anonymous child to buy gifts for based on a list of interests, age, and gender provided. NHS Sponsor Jennifer Soos also shared that members take the time to wrap these gifts, and even go so far as to donate wrapping paper and tape to take some stress out of the holidays for families facing struggle.

“The Central Office provides sponsors with an anonymous list of children from our community. They know what school the children are from and have the personal contact information for the families,” Soos said.

In the 2025 holiday season, the NHS was able to help about 33 children across 15 families. In addition to donations, the NHS used a portion of its fundraised money to purchase things like gloves and socks for each child, along with at least one item from the provided wishlists.

“Donated items ranged from toys, clothing, boots, video games, hygiene products, and haircare items,” Soos said.

This effort would not be possible without the generosity of members, who donate all the gifts they can, and the work of the sponsors who organize these gifts and spend more NHS funds to ensure every child will have a happier holiday season. It is the hope of everyone in the NHS that as years go on and this program becomes more established, they can have an even bigger impact on more people.

“Knowing that a child might not have received a gift on Christmas without our donations breaks my heart. It’s about small victories. Bringing joy to children will always create a positive impact at any age,” Soos said.

What’s coming up?

As winter sports begin to come to a close in the next few months, NPHS teams will be facing off with various schools in their sectional competitions. The Girls Swimming team will be competing on February 5 at South Bend Riley High School against other members of the Northern Indiana Conference.

Senior Ava Lux has shared her excitement over the upcoming meet.

“This team has been working very hard to prepare for these championship matches. They have been giving it their all at practices and meets all season, and I’m excited to see how that is going to pay off,” Lux said.

Though there is a lot to look forward to in this meet, for seniors like Lux, it can be hard realizing the season is coming to a close.

“I’m feeling more nervous than usual as sectionals approach. I’m feeling a little bittersweet as I end the last swim season of my high school career. It has been the best thing to happen to me through high school, but I’m also excited to move on to the next chapter in my life,” Lux said.

As the event draws nearer, the swim team will continue to prepare to give the meet their all in the hope that they can make it to the state competition.

Staff spotlight:

Jordan Staus has been teaching for 14 years overall and is in year eight at New Prairie. She has taught a variety of classes in the past, including Geography, Current Events, grade eight United States History, Physical Education, and Health. She currently teaches Advance Placement Government, Government, and Psychology, though her favorite class to teach is Government.

“I love politics and feel that having a solid foundation will help produce more educated voters. I enjoy hearing student perspectives and hopefully getting them interested in today’s issues,” Staus said.

Staus attended Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) and graduated in 2011 with a degree in secondary education – social studies. While at IPFW, Staus was a part of the volleyball team and did high jump.

In addition to her role as a teacher at NPHS, Staus has taken the position of head volleyball coach. 

“My mom was a coach, so I’ve been in the gym since birth and fell in love with the game. After my time was done, I wanted to coach and improve athletes skills. I also have a competition problem and love the thrill of games,” Staus said.

When Staus isn’t teaching or coaching at NPHS, she can probably be found at Dunes Volleyball Club.

“I spend a majority of my free time coaching volleyball at Dunes through my travel team and private lessons. Other than that, I enjoy traveling and being outside as much as possible, especially in the summer cruising in my Jeep with an iced coffee,” Status said.

Student spotlight:

Senior Ashland Fliris has chosen to involve herself not only in the gymnastics team at NPHS but also a team based out of Platinum Gymnastics in Michigan City.

“I have been doing gymnastics since I was around 7 years old. I also love having a community of people who love gymnastics as much as I do,” Fliris said.

In addition to her time spent training outside of school, Fliris has been a part of the Academic Super Bowl team for the past four years where she competes on the Fine Arts Team and English Team.

“I love being able to nerd out on my English and fine arts knowledge, and I love learning about different techniques and methods to create art,” Fliris said.

When in school, her favorite thing to do is socialize with friends because she loves getting the chance to interact with different groups of people. Her favorite class this year is Current Events.

“I love learning about all the different events happening in the world, and I believe it is good to know about them since our other history classes do not talk about anything current. In my opinion it is always good to know what is happening around the world because it usually directly affects us,” Fliris said.

After high school, Fliris plans on going to college at Valparaiso University or Purdue University Northwest to major in either nursing or hospitality. After that, she hopes to fulfill her dream of traveling the world.

Her senior year has brought a variety of different emotions to the surface.

“Senior year has been amazing so far. I am really excited to move on to college and see what else I can accomplish, but I am also a little nervous to go and be away from my friends and family. Overall, I’m just really excited,” Fliris said.

When Fliris isn’t working on school work or preparing for her future, she enjoys reading and painting. She even likes to keep a book on her at all times so she can find time between tasks to relax.