Lower School Community Outreach and Service Learning The goal of our Community Outreach Program is to develop a sense of caring for others in the community while our students are young. We work on developing their sense of empathy and help them become more compassionate members of our community as they proceed through Middle and Upper School. We hope that by the time our students graduate, they will have a real interest in being Agents of Change! Through service-learning, they will be motivated to use their knowledge and understand that they can and must change the way we live in our global community. When we are learning about hunger, our students go to a food bank such as SHARE where they will assist in preparing boxes of food for distribution to needy families. During October, we will decorate Halloween bags for people who for many reasons, are unable to go trick-or-treating. We will put some of the "treats" we collect in the bag and take it to local residential facilities. We also participate in Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign for children around the world. Students work participate in various environmental projects in connection with their studies in the classroom. Some of our past projects include working at the Willistown Conservation Trust, and Wissahickon Restoration in Fairmount Park. Through taking care of some green spaces, we are learning about the natural environment in addition to helping maintain the park areas. Among other activities, we develop new friendships at local nursing and residential facilities, we write letters to soldiers stationed overseas, and all the while we are learning about the larger community around the world.
In middle school, where students can take a service-learning elective, our students learn more about the global community and how our actions here can have far-reaching effects. One of our goals is to develop in each student a sense of responsibility to and for the community as a whole. In our academic classes the students are learning critical thinking and leadership qualities that help them serve and engage in active citizenship. An outreach program in conjunction with those classes gives the students an opportunity to see how policies or practices affect the daily lives of individuals that are very real to them.
Upper School Community Outreach
Upper school students are afforded many opportunities to voluntarily participate in community outreach activities. All opportunites are posted on the Community Outreach Bulletin Board for sign up. All students are encouraged to volunteer as their schedule permits.
Opportunities abound!
After schoool, we do everything from building sets for the plays in lower, middle & upper schools to helping younger students with their homework. We have upper school students working with lower school students in our greenhouse, running the clock for middle school athletic contests, and knitting blankets for the orphans in Mika,Tanzania, We have students working in the art studios creating bowls for our empty bowls project, and students in charge of recycling all the paper on campus. And our students tutor students from Philadelphia three days per week at the Bethel Academy.
On Monday evenings we tutor students at the Northern Home for Children in Roxborough. On Tuedsay & Wednesday evenings we tutor students at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. On Thursday evenings we serve dinner to the hungry at University City Hospitality Coalition.
Some other things we do:
Aid for Friends - Students prepare food for elederly homebound adults.
AIDS Walk - Students and their families participate in this eight-mile walk raising funds for HIV/AIDS Services in the Delaware Valley. This year it is on October 18, 2009
Hunger Walk - Students participate in this eight-mile walk to raise money for the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Huner. One Saturday in April.
SUN*Y Celebration - This event for 150 handicapped people is held at the Carousel House, Fairmount Park. Students decorate, run games, award prizes, serve lunch and socialize with special needs people from many different agencies. One Saturday in May.
Musical Performances - Choral groups go to area retirement and assisted living facilities to entertain the residents.
Social Impact! This is a new program we offer in conjunction with the Shipley School and Broad Street Ministry. We meet once a month to learn about an issue (i.e. AIDS, hunger, homelessness) and one Saturday per month to serve.