"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
Day of Service 2018
Friends community volunteers across NYC
Despite the rainy weather, the Friends community spread out across the city on April 25 for the Friends’ annual Day of Service, partnering with nonprofits that deal with everything from stocking food banks to packing medical supplies to feeding the hungry.
ON-CAMPUS ACTIVITIES
Ninth graders represented their selected nonprofits to a panel of Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) judges, who awarded grants. Students were split into teams and were tasked with choosing a social issue and an organization in New York City that works to address that issue. Students presented their research—which included a trip to the site of their chosen organization—in class, and eight teams were chosen to present at the Meetinghouse during Day of Service. A panel of judges, which included faculty, students, and members of philanthropic organizations, were on hand to choose the winning group. The winning team of Amanda, Joanne and Odessa presented on GEMS and received $5,000 courtesy of the Toskan Casale Foundation for the nonprofit. GEMS provides a spectrum of continuous and comprehensive services to address the needs of commercially and sexually exploited girls and young women. Two secondary prizes were also awarded. One was funded by the Parents Association. Yunus, Willow, Sophia, Vanessa received a prize of $1,000 for CancerCare, which provides free, professional support services and information to help people manage the emotional, practical and financial challenges of cancer. Another award for $750 funded by Friends went to Lella, Michael, Phoebe and Sophie, who represented Bottom Line, a nonprofit that helps low-income and first-generation-to-college students get to and through college. Through Friends Seminary’s partnership with YPI over the last eight years, Friends students have connected to 75 NYC nonprofits and have been able to award over $32K in grants to winning organizations.
Lower School students conducted a waste audit to analyze the trash, recycling, and compost that is generated in their classroom in a single day. The data collected by each class will be integrated into a school-wide waste audit, which will be used to pinpoint opportunities for waste reduction. These efforts will help Friends reach the goal of reducing the School's waste by 65% by 2026.
As an extension of their Empathy Forest initiative, second graders prepared seed balls with seeds native to the East Village and Lower East Side. Students will travel to theLower East Side Ecology Center at East River Park to disperse the balls at the beginning of May.
Because of the rain, the fifth and sixth grade students participated in a modified day of Service. They began their morning with Meredith from Common Ground Compost learning about waste and recycling in NYC and spent the afternoon watching documentary, Bag It, which follows one man’s journey to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store.
The fifth grade prepared for their H2O for Life walk by reminiscing on the work that they have done in their goLEAD classes learning about access to clean, safe water and ended the day by decorating their recycled water jugs with water facts to be used as a walking billboard when they participate in their annual Walk to Water in the beginning of June.
OFF-CAMPUS ACTIVITIES
Grade 7 students volunteered at seven differentReading Partner school locations. In order to serve as tutors to struggling lower school readers, the students completed a training in advance of the Day of Service. Additionally, students made literacy games forThe GO Project’s summer program. Both efforts are an extension of student’s study of the human right to an education. They have looked at this issue through an international and domestic lens.
Grade 8 students made fleece blankets and assembled care packages for undocumented minors who are staying at aChildren’s Village residential facility, while they await trial in NY Immigration Court. As an extension of their year-long look at immigration and migration challenges, students also traveled to theFourth Universalist Society on Central Park West to hear from clergy about their recent involvement in the Sanctuary Movement. Students heard directly from Aura Hernandez, an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant and her 15-month-old daughter, Camila, who have sought refuge within the church to avoid deportation.
Grade 10 students volunteered with theAFYA Foundation, an organization that collects and distributes medical supplies for humanitarian relief efforts around the world. They learned about the organization’s recent efforts in the Caribbean, especially on islands like Puerto Rico that were devastated by Hurricane Maria. At the Foundation, the students sorted medical and humanitarian supplies to send to Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, British Virgin Islands and St Thomas. To date, AFYA has loaded 13 planes with medications and medical supplies and more will follow. These supplies combine for a total of 36,000 lbs valued over $2,000,000.
Grade 11 students focused their volunteer efforts on food insecurity in NYC. Students participated in the Food Bank Repack Program at the Bronx Food Distribution Warehouse, which distributes food to organizations throughout the five boroughs. Students sorted and repacked bulk shipped food and goods for redistribution around the city. The Food Bank Repack program helps supply 64 million meals to New Yorkers in need each day.
Another group of eleventh graders volunteered through the Food Bank Shop & Stock Program a the Community Kitchen of West Harlem, where they assisted seniors that visited the pantry. They bagged groceries and restocked shelves at this choice-style food pantry. Students efforts helped the Community Kitchen provide more than 40,000 monthly meals.
A third group of eleventh graders toured the headquarters of our longtime partner, God’s Love We Deliver, before hitting the streets to deliver nutritious meals to homebound clients. They saw the state-of-the-art kitchens and packaging systems that help generate 1.6 million meals annually to 6,650 New Yorkers.
A fourth group of eleventh graders supported the lunch program at St. John’s Bread and Life that aims to serve the hungry, homeless and working poor. Open Monday through Friday, St. John’s aims to feed 800,000 people by the end of 2018. The menu is developed on guests’ nutritional needs and cultural diversity.
Due to the rain, grade 12 students participated in an alternative activity. They fondly remembered their time participating in the YPI program when they were ninth graders, and happily served as audience membersfor the Class of 2021’s presentations. They then participated in a reflection activity reminiscing on their service participation at Friends over the last four years. There will be an optional afternoon for students to volunteer as planned with the Billion Oyster Project on Governor’s Island.
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
