Today, as hundreds of students, faculty, and staff gather for Community Service Day. Students will be interacting with the local community today, which is a significant development from last year.
According to Ms. Melissa Koomson, the Director of Community Service, half of the student population will be travelling off-campus to areas in Wallingford, New Haven, and Cheshire to complete work related to sustainability and the environment, such as cleaning up, working in local farms, and helping with restoration in inner-city parks. The other half will stay on campus, planting and removing invasive species in specific locations, including the cross-country course. The student body will be split in half by dorms and day student groups. After students complete their assigned activities, they will reunite on campus for lunch and a debriefing activity.
The planning of this one-day event started more than a year ago. “I first met with facilities last January to talk about the idea of doing some kind of service work on campus,” Ms. Koomson said. “That initial conversation happened because some of the C-Proctors had expressed a desire to do community service related to sustainability and the environment. I said, ‘I love it! Let’s try to work it out and see what we can do,’ and so we’ve been working on this for a really long time.”
Mr. Jim Yanelli, Director of the Student Activities Center, and the community service advisory group joined Ms. Koomson and the C-Proctors in the planning process.
Ms. Koomson highlighted the complexity of planning such a massive event. “People don’t always know what’s going on behind the scenes,” she said. “For example, the day is called ‘Community Service Day,’ but we’re not going to be doing community service for the entire school day because the local bus company has to finish their route in the morning, dropping kids off at local schools before coming to work with us. And then they have to be back by one o’clock in the afternoon to pick up those kids.”
Ms. Koomson added that the main difference between this year’s and last year’s Community Service Days involves the complexity of preparation: solving the logistical pieces, such as finding the appropriate organizations, contacting numerous people to check who is available, organizing transportation, and gathering all the tools and snacks for students, was a big job. “The previous service day activities have involved people working together in a packing environment, and I wanted to do something that really engages students in their work,” said Ms. Koomson. “It’s really important for me to hear student voices about things, so when the C-Proctors came to me and expressed their enthusiasm, I wanted to be that ‘yes’ person.”
She added, “This year’s activities are just so outside of the box that it makes me think, Do we even have a box?.”
In terms of future goals for Community Service Day, Ms. Koomson said that she regards this year’s event as an investment for future models. “I do like the idea of providing space for students to engage in the community around campus but also on campus to give back to our school community while serving the earth,” she said. “I think it is important for students to learn about the impact disasters have on the earth and the importance of green space in an inner-city situation.”
Ms. Koomson said that she wants students to view themselves as “change-agents” by engaging directly with the community.
Many students had opinions on Community Service Day and the direction that community service should take at Choate in general. Gordon Clark ’19 argued that students are often left to do community service on their own at Choate, which can be daunting and tedious, so Community Service Day offers a great way for students to work for a common purpose and have fun at the same time. He emphasized the need for a relationship with those you help. “Community service should be about making relationships with the people that we are helping and being meaningful in their lives, not just being a superficial, impersonal helper,” he said.
Sarah Gurevitch ’19 brought up a similar point in regards to the lack of work in the community, since last year, students packed toiletries and did not go out into the local area. “Community service has really become more hands-on and interactive over the past years, so it would be cool if students had more opportunities to meaningfully interact with the people in need,” she said.
Community Service Day has changed quite a bit since last year, and it will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve in the future.
