Programs

2008-2009 Community Outreach Calendar

LOWER SCHOOL

I.  Introduction

The Lower School framework has three parts: a year long project, the fall session and the spring session. The year long project will be a penny drive benefiting Paul's Place, called Pennies for Paul's Place. The fall session will focus on drives leading up to Thanksgiving and the holidays. The spring session will be devoted to monthly activities assigned by grade. During the spring session, each grade will be assigned one month in which they will create a product for use by the children at Paul's Place.

II.  Year Long Project

Pennies for Paul's Place will be a simple penny drive for the Lower School. Each morning, Mrs. Thomas will place a water jug at the top of the lobby steps. Students can place pennies in the jug throughout the year. The pennies raised will then be taken to a coin exchange and the cash will be donated to Paul's Place.

III.  Fall Session

The fall session in the Lower School will be the launching point for three drives, one in October, one in November, and one in December. All grades will participate in the UNICEF coin drive in October. 5^th graders will inform the lower grades about the purpose of UNICEF and how the drive will work, then each Lower School student will be given an orange collection box and encouraged to collect change over Halloween. The 5^th grade will then follow through with a report to the Lower School and a quick reflection.

Each grade, starting in Pilot and going up to the 10^th Age, will be assigned a food item to bring in for the Paul's Place Thanksgiving Drive in November, and a toy item for the Holiday Drive in December. The Lower School will spend one week discussing and marketing the drive and one week for the actual drive. Although it will not be mandatory to bring in a donated item, it will be a mandatory part of the curriculum to participate in the preparation and reflection of the activity.

The table below further illustrates the fall session:

IV.  Spring Session

The grades will again serve as the foundation for the spring session of the Lower School community outreach program. Each class will have an assigned project and month. Classes will create a product for the children at Paul's Place as assigned. In their assigned month, the class will spend time learning about where and to whom the product is going, creating the product, and reflecting on the activity. In addition, each class will make 100 sandwiches on the day of delivery to help those at Paul's Place with the most immediate need. The table below further illustrates the spring session:

MIDDLE SCHOOL

I.  Introduction

The Middle School will participate in the Thanksgiving Drive in October and Holiday Drive in December. Their involvement will closely resemble that of the Lower School. In the winter and spring, a community service period each week allows the Middle School greater flexibility to set their seasonal service projects.

II.  Partner Drives

Just like the Lower School, participation in the drive is not mandatory, but students will be asked to take part in the preparation and reflection activities associated with the Thanksgiving and Holiday Drives.

The table below illustrates the Middle School involvement in the partner drives:

III.  The Middle School Framework

Every Wednesday has dedicated time in the middle of the school day to focus on community outreach. This time is largely devoted to outreach learning through a themed approach.

The 5^th grade focuses on the community within the boundaries of Calvert School. The vehicle for their focus is the recycling program. They also spearhead the educational component of the October UNICEF Drive in the Lower School. The 8^th graders spend much of their fall preparing for high school placement and working on their Castalia projects. In February they will be helping the Pilot class with their mobile projects. The 8^th grade will determine their service project for the spring as it approaches. 

The 6^th grade outreach program emphasizes our role within the environment throughout the school year. In the 2008-2009 school year, the 7^th grade will be focusing on the presidential election, through various community awareness lessons and mock campaign activities. In the winter, the two grades work together on a variety of faculty outreach clubs. In the spring, the 6^th grade works in small teams to clean the campus grounds during the community outreach time.  The 7^th grade prepares for high school placement during the spring community outreach session. These outreach programs within the 6^th and 7^th grades will remain necessarily flexible in order to engage a more mature student body.