Wooster School Community Service Program

“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time." - Marion Wright Edelman

Community Service is central to a Wooster Schooleducation. Lifting the human spirit and helping transform the world into a more hospitable planet underscores the basic values taught at Wooster. In harmony with both the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam - to heal, repair, and transform the world - and the Christian tradition of loving one’s neighbor, Wooster asks each student to participate in community service activities.

Understanding that we all share this earth, service to others allows students to expand their awareness of the needs of others, gain a greater respect for all life, and become an integral part of the collective responsibility to give back to society.

Valuing other people means we must give our time and talent to make lives better. To that end, every Wooster student is required to engage in work that provides support to others, to reflect on that work, and to communicate the lessons learned to others in the community. Wooster sponsors a variety of service opportunities designed to bring members of the K-12 community together.

Three times per year, students and parents are encouraged to help prepare care packages for the Midnight Run. Volunteers make hot soup, prepare bagged meals, and sort clothes for delivery to the homeless in New York City. In November, the community launches a Turkey Drive to benefit the Daily Bread Food Pantry and the Hispanic Center. In December, a holiday drive collects and delivers gifts and clothing to the Hanahoe Children’s Clinic and Family and Children’s Aid. 

Throughout the fall and spring families can volunteer to help pick up garbage along Wooster’s Adopt-a-Street, Miry Brook Road. In addition to these opportunities, Upper School students may volunteer to attend a school sponsored Urban Work Camp. This five-day trip brings a small group of students to inner-city Philadelphia where they help build houses for community-wide organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.In addition, they cook a hot meal for the homeless and spend time with recovering addicts at a local rehabilitation center.

Wooster Community Service Programs

Lower School – Service to the community is a theme that runs through weekly chapel discussions. As children grow spiritually and their view of the world expands beyond their own interests, they cultivate the desire and responsibility to serve others.Each class completes a community service project during the course of the year and shares the experience with other classes.

Middle School – Middle School students are required to complete 15 hours of service during the 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.This may be accomplished by participating in service activities in the student’s own community, or through participation in scheduled Wooster Community Service projects open to middle school students during the year.

Upper School – Upper School students are required to complete 100 hours of community service before beginning their Senior Independent Study (SIS) in the spring of their senior year. They are encouraged to seek independent service opportunities throughout their four years.  Students are required to submit a final essay reflecting on the work they have done and ways of connecting their experiences to life, school, and community.

SELF-HELP 

Self-help has been one of the fundamental principles at Wooster since the School's founding in 1926. It is a philosophy that places total responsibility for the physical environment of the school on the students.

Students are not only responsible for cleaning and maintaining the campus, but also for the program's organization and management.

As students in the Lower School (grades K - 5) progress through the grades, they assume more responsibility for their classrooms and the Lower School building. Students in the Middle and Upper Schools (grades 6 - 12) are in charge at all times of the upkeep of the whole school.

In addition to self-help and volunteering, Upper School students meet the requirement of 100 hours of community service outside the Wooster community, which can be completed between the summer before freshman year and graduation.

Seniors in good standing academically may also participate in the Senior Independent Study (SIS) program the last six weeks of their senior year, at which time they may pursue a community service project or career interest as a job off campus. Upon completion of SIS, each student submits a written report and makes an oral presentation to the faculty and senior classmates about what he or she learned.