NHS raises money with dodgeball event

CONNEAUT – The latest iteration of the National Honor Society at Conneaut High School was looking to be more involved during the 2025-26 school year and thus, took on more service projects.
As the end of the year approaches, the NHS students decided it was a great time to for a little bit of fun in the name of raising money, and the 2026 Charity Dodgeball Tournament was launched.
“This NHS group is a lot more involved than in the past, so we’ve been wanting to host more events,” CHS National Honor Society President Aaron Johnson said. “This is just one of those things that we wanted. We wanted to kind of leave the year on something strong and we thought about some fun fundraisers that we could do to help out the groups that we’ve been assisting throughout the year. We’ve really been helping Dr. Dolittle’s and Maddox and Friends.”
The proceeds from the Charity Dodgeball Tournament at Garcia Gymnasium on Wednesday, March 25, are to be split and donated to Dr. Dolittle’s House Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and Maddox and Friends Cat Rescue. Along with the dodgeball tournament, 10 items were raffled and a 50/50 drawing was held.
“We’re definitely very grateful,” Johnson said. “They didn’t need to (make those donations). That’s something that, obviously, we asked if anybody was willing to do, but they didn’t have to do that. They chose to donate. That comes out of their own money.”
Dodgeball seemed like a good activity to use in raising funds.
“Basketball is hard for some people to pick up just because it does take a lot, but dodgeball is pretty easy to get a lot of people to do just because everybody knows how to throw and catch a ball,” Johnson said.
Eight teams participated included groups from the Conneaut Police Department, Conneaut Fire Department and the Conneaut High School staff.
“I’m very grateful, because until not too long ago, we were having issues with getting people signed up,” Johnson said. “We didn’t have too many. It really took a big effort with announcements, talking to the kids personally. It really did take a lot and these kids volunteered their time to come out here, so I’m very grateful for that.”
The event was one in a long line hosted by the National Honor Society during the school year.
“We certainly had a good group last year, but as juniors, we felt like we wanted to do more this year than we did last year, and we felt like we weren’t as involved as we could have been,” Johnson said. “It really just came with wanting to help out more. Part of National Honor Society is the service aspect, and we felt like we didn’t have enough of that last year, so we just wanted to do more.”