Ser vice Learning as Personal Commitment
Above, part of Doherty’s efforts for the clients of the Open Door; at right, visiting at Beechwood Home.
In addition to extensive service efforts in the Greater Cincinnati community—from schoolwide clothing and food drives to making warm clothing and preparing food for the needy—our students are reaching out to help people worldwide. A wide range of fundraising efforts for Haiti throughout the grades (more about these efforts in our next issue), sale of Beads for Life jewelry to help impoverished Ugandan women, raising funds for the Heifer International Project, collecting for UNICEF, working to improve the educational conditions of a school in the Ecuadorian Andes are just a few examples. Students are learning about international finance when they raise funds to make microloans through Kiva.org to
individuals with small businesses in underdeveloped countries. As the loans are repaid, the students choose another small business to assist with a microloan, and they can follow online the success of the individual which they helped to make possible. Service learning becomes personal for Seven Hills students as they visit residents of the Beechwood Home and senior centers, make friends at the Open Door Ministry, play with the young children at local child care centers, volunteer weekly at The Caring Place, and listen to speakers who make real for them the plight of the homeless, disabled, and impoverished in their own community. In all of their outreach efforts, Seven Hills students have an abundance of role models in their teachers and peers, who have made service a significant part of their personal lives.
Above, Lotspeich students made ceramic Hearts for Haiti pins to sell for UNICEF. At right, eighth graders baked 156 individual loaves of apple plum bread for the residents of Tender Mercies in Over-the-Rhine. This is the fourth year for this service learning project.
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