Values in Action Through Service

 

“I always tell our students that, once you know something, you can’t unknow it,” said Alexa Bolt, Steward’s JK-12 coordinator of service learning and community engagement. “Once you have that awareness of a need, you can’t look away from it. And, once you have the knowledge of how to help and the organizations that exist, you can generate a lot of good.”

 

Service learning is one of the core initiatives of Steward’s strategic plan, Compass 2028. Head of School Dan Frank explained that service learning aligns with all our values as a school, as well as our mission to prepare students for college and for life in a community defined by robust academics, inspiration, engagement, and care.

 

“Consider our values,” Mr. Frank said. “Service learning integrates aspects of every single one: academic achievement, care & respect, civil discourse, individuality, innovation, and inspiration. Service learning is our values in practice, coming off the page and into students’ lives in a very real way. It’s integral to a Steward education that students engage in this important experience that connects classroom learning to real community needs.”

 

Ms. Bolt explained the school’s approach: “Traditionally, people think first of community service. But service learning is meant to be a deeper investigation. For example, it’s not simply ‘how can I help at the soup kitchen? but also Why do soup kitchens exist? How do they work and not work to address food insecurity? Why do we have food insecurity in our area, and is it getting better or worse? What organizations operate in this space already? And, how can I help?’”

 

Next, Ms. Bolt works with administrators and student groups to identify organizations, ask what they need, and then plan and implement a service initiative. She also supports students through reflection. “Good service learning is collaborative between the community partner and the people doing it,” Ms. Bolt said. “It should address a real-world concern and it shouldn’t make more work for the organization you’re supporting.”

 

In collaboration with the faculty, Ms. Bolt is working her way toward grade-level service learning initiatives in every grade. Thus far, examples include:

 

Junior Kindergarten: As part of their character education lesson on gratitude, students make candy bags and thank you cards to distribute to the Steward faculty and staff.

 

Grade 3: To learn about soil health, students compost with food scraps from the dining hall and also plant and nurture seeds in different types of soil. This contextualizes how soil health affects a society’s ability to grow food. They also visit Shalom Farms, a nonprofit farm working for an equitable food system, to see the importance of compost and soil health on a larger scale.

 

Grade 4: Heat islands are places in cities with a lot of concrete and asphalt that trap heat and raise the overall temperature. In the Bryan Innovation Lab, students use laser sensors to do heat readings of different surfaces. Later this school year, they’ll learn about and volunteer at Sankofa Orchard, which was built in downtown Richmond to minimize the impact of a heat island there. 

 

Seminar Classes for Grades 6-8: All Middle School students take a grade-level seminar, and during the problem-solving rotation, students engage with service learning. Grade 6 is learning about poverty and did an outdoor cleanup at Woodland Cemetery. Grade 7 learned about food insecurity at Shalom Farms, then worked to counteract it by preparing meals on campus to donate to RVA community fridges. Grade 8 is focused on environmental cleanup and justice, with both classroom lessons and a service project.

 

Grade 9: Students do an in-depth poverty study in preparation for a minimester spent completing citywide community service. These placements aim to show students that we’re all part of the same Richmond community. In previous years, students have volunteered at community gardens, community centers, housing facilities, schools, and more.

 

Grades 10 and 11 Seminars: Students are partnering with local nonprofit Children's Assistive Technology Service (C.A.T.S.), which provides adaptive technology services to children and their families who are otherwise unable to access this technology. Grade 10 students did a meaningful Halloween costume project, and Grade 11 students will be adapting toys.