Community Service in the Lower School

Community service activities for Lower School students are initiated and organized by Parents’ Association volunteers.

Martha Gangemi P’14, ’11, the liaison for community service & communications, explains that the program’s goal is to provide Lower School students and parents with a way to get to know each other better in a fun, productive, age-appropriate setting, while introducing the girls to community service learning and leadership.

The girls have an opportunity to participate in a number of activities. To introduce students to the idea of service learning, the Parents’ Association organizes an event each fall. Last year, representatives from Pine Street Inn, Greater Boston Food Bank, and Horizons for Homeless Children spoke with students about what they do, why it is important and what the girls can do to help.

In the winter, the Parents’ Association organizes a full-day service event for the students. Last year, Classes I and II decorated cards and made Celebration Day boxes for homeless children at Horizons for Homeless Children’s play centers. Class III did a vegetable chop-a-thon for Pine Street Inn, and Class IV visited worked at the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Other service activities in the spring have included a joint activity between Class IV girls and Belmont Hill Form II boys, friends, parents and families. In 2007, the group participated in a morning of hands-on clean up at the Audubon Broadmoor Wildlife Center in Natick. At another final service event of the year, Class III girls and Belmont Hill Form I boys helped the organization Cradles to Crayons by packing donated goods into boxes for shipment.