As we continue our focus on Goal 3 of Sacred Heart education, we highlight our Middle School program. Students in grades 5-8 contribute more than 20 hours of service each year in the community. Service Coordinator and Fifth/Sixth Class teacher Tammy Strother shares her passion for this integral part of our curriculum and a much-loved hallmark of a student’s Academy experience.
Goal 3: A social awareness which impels to action is definitely a goal close to my heart. Coordinating the Service Learning Program is a way to bring this goal alive in myself and our school community. This program gives our students, parents, and faculty an opportunity to reach out to those in our community who have different needs and abilities. It’s important for our students to see the dignity of all people and our responsibility to our community outside of these Academy walls. My heart is always overflowing after seeing the interactions between our students and the people they serve. Their compassion is incredible. At the start of the year, some students feel unsure about what they will experience or who they will be meeting. By the second or third visit, many will be totally engaged and running the activities. They build connections and bonds with people who have become their friends.
In Sixth Class, our focus is on poverty and homelessness. We discuss the reasons people find themselves in these positions and statistics in St. Charles County and throughout the United States. They will learn about some of the programs offered to those in need. At the culmination of this unit, the Sixth Class and their parents will experience a poverty simulation presented on campus by the North East Community Action Corporation (NECAC). Following this activity, students return to school in the evening for the Bed in a Box experience. They will experience reflection in the Shrine, make blessing bags for those in need, and, weather permitting, spend the night outside in a box.
Our Middle School Social Justice Club helps organize different drives throughout the year. Their upcoming drive is the personal hygiene drive that will help support Sixth Class students collect the supplies needed to make their blessing bags the evening of Bed in a Box.
My hope is through these experiences at the Academy, our students — your children — will become life-long stewards of God’s creation and realize they can make a difference in this world through their compassion and love for others. I feel blessed to be part of this process
