Community Service Awards

CSEE's 2009-2010 Community Service Award will recognize programs that empower students, giving them meaningful roles to play and leadership opportunities through community service projects. Applications will be due February 8th, 2010, and winners announced April 15th.

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2008-2009 Award Winners: Recognizing Elementary Schools Doing Exemplary Work in the Community

First Place

The Hewitt School
New York, NY

By intentionally focusing on action-based activities, Hewitt students are challenged to grow in new ways, have a chance to build relationships with others in their community and broaden their perspectives, and learn that a single individual can affect change. The variety of local, national, and global issues that are addressed through service at Hewitt is also commendable. Some of these activities, all integrated into the curriculum, include: making sandwiches weekly for the local food pantry, creating activity bags for patients at a nearby hospital, collecting books for under-resourced schools, participating in races and math-a-thons for Ronald McDonald House, Susan G. Koman Foundation, and St.Jude's Hospital, and partnering with younger students at area public schools to teach others about community service.

One of Hewitt's most impressive projects is with KIVA, a global organization that does micro-loans for the working poor (www.kiva.org). Students are paired by grades (an upper school student with a lower school student) and learn about an assigned entrepreneur from KIVA. Older students devise lesson plans to teach younger students about what it means to start and run a business, then together they create a business venture to raise money for their KIVA entrepreneur. Students are informed that they cannot ask parents for money, but have to raise the money through creative means. Some students sold hot chocolate on the street, others held bake sales, and everyone learned about loans, business, and developing countries.

Thank you to Dara Broxmeyer, Director of Community Service at Hewitt, for sharing Hewitt's great program!

Second Place

Marymount School
New York, NY

Marymount's program is intentional about teaching awareness, attitude, and compassion toward others through service projects. Many of their projects are chosen because they support children and women in need, extending the ministry work of the founders of their school, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM). Their long standing engagements with the Incarcerated Mothers Program and RSHM educational ministries in Zimbabwe, as well as the shorter-term service projects, are meaningful, age-appropriate, and well integrated into the religious and social studies curricula at the school. Students also design and execute their own in-depth community service project: a terrific way to give students ownership, get them fully engaged with a cause, and take time for valuable reflection.

Thank you to Susan T. Johnson for submitting Marymount's application for recognition, and to Sr.Clevie Youngblood, Service Director!

Honorable Mention

The Blake School
Hopkins, MN

In the realm of service learning, the Blake School gives tremendous support to their faculty: national service learning leaders, such as author Catherine Berger Kaye and Dr. Jenny Friedman, have visited the school to give inspiration, the lower school has a service resource center and service library collection to spark ideas and offer best-practices, and the school has a unifying service learning mission statement to keep everyone on track. The integration of the service activities into the curriculum at Blake School is done very well - from labeling articles of clothing in Spanish for El Centro Latino, to nutrition study while collecting food for a local food bank. Evaluating programs is also important, and the Blake School does this through thoughtful questions and considerations for teachers and students.

Thank you to Nan Peterson, Blake School Service Director, for sharing Blake's program!

Honorable Mention

The Ensworth School
Nashville, TN

The Ensworth School recently celebrated their 50th Anniversary with an all-school Habitat for Humanity build. Together, the whole Ensworth community - students in all grades, faculty, staff, parents, alumni and friends -built four houses! The Ensworth lower school community service program has a variety of meaningful, age-appropriate activities, from the sensitive teaching of homelessness to pre-first-grade students through Habitat for Humanity work, to the long-term, relationship-building experiences that fourth and fifth graders have with students at Harris-Hillman (a local public school for children with physical disabilities) and Tom Joy Elementary (a local public school). The integration of these activities into the curriculum is spectacular.

Thank you to Bruce Libonn, Lower School Head, for submitting Ensworth's application, and to Roc Batten, Service Director at Ensworth!