It’s Wednesday, it’s 3:30, and in room 1175, senior Jason Block stands in front of the green-floored classroom waiting for his fellow members to quicken their pace and find their way to the week’s meeting of S.A.V.E. Club. Sometime afterwards, junior Faris Karaman and senior Imaani Ali step into the room with brown desks.

The three of them strike up a conversation while the two sponsors, Special Education teachers Peggy Sullivan and Barbara Schwartz, make their way into the  room  with two huge bags full of… bags.  Sooner than later, the room fills up with eight people total, and they all settle down to discuss ambitious plans for the future of our environment.

Some small talk ensues and some shuffling about occurs until Sullivan and Schwartz begin to talk about their plans for the day. They murmur and whisper and talk quietly, but the entire group listens and they all get to the work the sponsors assigned to them.  Through steady cooperation, the members begin to take plastic bags out of the two huge garbage bags Schwartz and Sullivan lugged into the room.

Club secretary Ali hands out index cards and tape to the members in order for them to write the homeroom teachers’ names and tape it to the bags. While passing out the cards, the sponsors nicely ask the members to also write “Share Your Soles” on the back. Some of the students are shaking out the bags, some are putting on the name tags, and the others are writing in a wonderful pattern that is actually a delight to watch; this is group work.

“Share Your Soles is a shoe drive– the bags are going to be going to the homerooms and the students will be able to donate their shoes,” said junior Jenny Hau.

Share Your Soles is one of the consistent organizations S.A.V.E. Club has been donating to. Share Your Soles is a charity to which used or old shoes are donated for those who do not have shoes because they are unable to afford it. Along with Share Your Soles, S.A.V.E. Club also organizes blood drives and cell phone drives. Karaman, the special events manager, is in charge of organizing these events.

The past couple of years, S.A.V.E. Club has been doing the usual work: reusing, recycling, and spreading that work out everywhere in the school; however, they have decided to take a new approach along with their usual work this year.

“[S.A.V.E. Club] is taking a new direction. The club is moving towards helping domestic animals and endangered wildlife. We just got started and we’re taking it one thing at a time,” said Sullivan and Schwartz when asked what the big new plan is for the year.

The Affy Tapple sales were one of the first steps to rehabilitating endangered and domestic animals. The Affy Tapple sales were for money to be able to adopt a wolf from Brookfield Zoo, which meant they were donating funds to support the endangered wolf, not actually keep it.

Further plans for helping the animals include the always famous and fun dog wash. To get people more into this sort of event, S.A.V.E. Club is thinking of holding contests in which people take pictures with animals and the best picture would win a prize.

Along with a dog wash, the club wants to go out there and actually do something outdoors and with their own hands. Once the weather gets warmer, they all plan on taking frequent trips to various shelters to help the animals and just spend some time with them.

“Last year we brainstormed a bunch of ideas. This year we’re working on actually doing things rather than just talking like last year,” said Ali. She doesn’t feel that the last year had been as successful as they had hoped it to be, and now they actually want to do more for the environment, and help out more. It is much better to be hands-on when helping the ecosystem.

“The stuff we do, like helping the environment, is important to me. Before we used to do stuff just for the environment, but now we are including the animals because they make up the environment, and every part of the environment is important,” said Ali.

Club president Block also feels that this year for Save Club will be golden.

“I do think it’s going to work out because people support it. And helping animals was a group decision,” said Block.

To get Save Club much more publicized to the rest of Niles West, the members are going to start handing out vivid flyers and putting up colorful posters soon. They are not just determined, but enthusiastic about this club.

Sometimes students themselves don’t do what they tell everyone else to do, such as recycle and reuse, but S.A.V.E. Club members are different. They have instincts within themselves to make sure to recycle.  For instance, during the arranging of the plastic bags for the shoe drive, the bags that were not going to be used were recycled because they could be used for something else next time.

S.A.V.E. Club is one of the clubs in our school that is really on its way to making a difference not just for our school, but for the important parts of the environment that exist outside of our school. This club plans on taking steps that are beyond what they have ever done before.  With that kind of determination from its club members and sponsors, the club is sure to be very successful and acknowledged by many.

S.A.V.E. Club meets Wednesday at 3:30 pm in room 3185.