Alumni Action
From left to right: Craig Ruppert ’71, Christopher Davitt ’12, Chris Davitt P ’12, Christina Orcino ’08, Daniel Behrman ’13, Dominic Orcino ’13, Tony Pizzola ’13 and Battisa Orcino P ’08.
Service at St. John’s… It’s Tradition “Enter to learn. Leave to serve.” This refrain is quoted often around the halls of St. John’s. Its meaning reflects the Lasallian value that all Christians are called to a life of service, especially to those most in need and disenfranchised. But how are today’s Cadets heeding this message? To be sure, Christian service is an integral part of a St. John’s education. In order to graduate, students must perform 90 hours of service over 4 years. This translates into a total of 25,575 service hours per year for the student body. These hours take the form of service to the students’ own faith communities, to the poor and disenfranchised, and directly to people in need. “Just as the Religion curriculum at SJC is designed to bring students to adult faith, the Christian Service Program teaches them to act on that faith in very concrete ways,” says Religion Department Chair and Coordinator of Mission and Ministry, Tom Sipowicz. “The majority of our students have a compassionate understanding of their responsibility to others, especially those suffering, by the time they graduate. This is a result of good parenting, good education, and the students’ growing ability to recognize God’s presence all around them.” In keeping with the Lasallian charism that, from its very beginnings, has been rooted in service to the poor, St. John’s dedicated an entire week in March to poverty education. During this week, lessons were offered across the curriculum to provide the school community with a deeper understanding of the causes and issues related to economic
poverty. Representatives from the National Coalition for the Homeless, who themselves had experienced homelessness, addressed the junior class about myths and facts surrounding homelessness and discussed the often-unexpected variety of paths that can lead an individual to become homeless. They challenged the widely held belief that homelessness is a personal problem. In addition, St. John’s held a school-wide mission drive to benefit the Child Development Center in Kenya and sponsored service opportunities, such as tutoring at a local public charter school, preparing food at a soup kitchen, and delivering groceries to the poor. For many students, service is performed along with his or her families, sports teams, and clubs. Each year, immeasurable extra-curricular hours of service are done voluntarily through groups that students are involved in. For example, the Lasallian Youth group, recently hosted Field Day for the students of the San Miguel School. For many Cadets, however, the high point of their service experience is one of the immersion trips offered directly by the school. St. John’s traditionally offers three or four service trips a year, with the goal of having every student participate in one of these trips before graduating. Students routinely jump at the chance to spend their free time and vacations participating in service trips. During spring break, for example, students experienced firsthand the poverty on an indian reservation through their work at the De La Salle Blackfeet School in Browning, Nick Saurez ’13 with students from the De La Salle Blackfeet School in Browning, Mont.
St. John’s College High School 13