Learning Through Service
Every year, Friends’ Central students perform more than 20,000 hours of service in the greater community and more than 1,700 hours of campus service.
Community service at Friends’ Central School is part of the School’s identity, culture, and tradition. We believe that caring for our school, local, and global communities serves the guiding testimonies of stewardship, community, peace, and integrity. The program teaches a real world understanding of issues of social justice and challenges stereotypes existing within all of us. As we educate students who will face the environmental and social challenges of the 21st century, it is important that we cultivate the skills and understanding of real world problems they will need to affect social change. Service work creates strong individual and institutional relationships, which in turn strengthen our community and each student's sense of self-worth. Many service projects bring our students into contact with people and situations they might not often encounter – in hospitals, soup kitchens, legal aid organizations, and nursing homes. Gaining confidence and a sense of comfort in these varying contexts, developing empathy and compassion, and meeting challenges with flexibility and good cheer will inform the personal and professional decisions our students make throughout their lives.
In the manner of the Religious Society of Friends, we hope that learning through service will help our students to see that of God in everyone. The School’s commitment to service in each of the divisions is embedded in the curriculum. Through ongoing service projects and reflective discussions, students gain a sense of responsibility for the Friends’ Central community as well as the larger community. It is not enough simply to learn about service in the classroom; we believe that values must be lived. From Nursery children to seniors, our students are eager to participate, learn, and lead.
