Community Service

The value of helping others, both within our school and in the world beyond, permeates the Green Acres community. Service is integrated into the curriculum as much as possible.

At all grade levels, students work with teachers, parents, and members of the community to identify the needs of others and to plan a course of action. Younger students pick up paper around the campus for recycling and plant bulbs to beautify the environment. Students may plant vegetables and then use them to make soup for a soup kitchen. Some may shelve books and assemble monthly theme-based book displays in the library. Older students reach out to younger students and assist with School-sponsored community events. Students may learn about the disparity in income between rich and poor and then decide to volunteer at a local shelter. In all cases, students have a context for their service work.

For 7th and 8th graders, the community service expectation is a formal one. At this point students move into the larger community in many different ways, such as assisting with environmental projects or working for social change through community action groups. During a student’s 7th and 8th grade years at Green Acres, he or she is required to contribute at least 40 hours of service to a nonprofit organization, and many students choose to do much more.

Annual service projects include:

Soup Making: Once a week, 3rd and 4th graders wash, peel, and chop vegetables and open cans of crushed tomatoes, green beans, and other ingredients for soup that will feed homeless men and women. The entire Green Acres community participates by donating ingredients for the soup. Parents help by assisting the students as they prepare the soup and by volunteering to deliver the soup to St. Martin’s Soup Kitchen in Gaithersburg.

Buddies: One afternoon each week throughout the school year, 7th and 8th graders meet with young buddies from a school in Potomac for children with special needs. Green Acres students help their buddies work on skills such as conversational language, taking turns, sharing, introducing themselves to other children, making eye contact, and engaging in conversations, games, and activities with peers.

Food Drive: Every Thanksgiving, all students and staff participate in a nonperishable food drive for Manna Food Center. The School has set and met the goal of collecting one ton of food for the past several years.

Book Drive: Students in all grades donate new or gently used books for distribution to schools that need them.