Richie Palazzese ’14

This winter, the fitness and community service options at Episcopal have shifted from students splitting time between fitness and community service, to selecting one or the other. With this new arrangement, the hope is that students will be able to focus on one area of afterschool activities and devote themselves to it completely. There are currently 79 students enrolled in the revamped fitness group, and according to fitness coach Steve Musacchio, the weight room has a new mentality. Nyazia Martin ’12 said that in the past, fitness could be an easy way out. “There were definitely kids who would slack off and use it as a way to not play a sport.” Musacchio echoed this sentiment, saying, “Kids did not achieve goals because they were going through the motions.” However, Musacchio and his co-coach Mike Mascio, have changed the program to keep all 79 athletes active. According to Musaccio, fitness participants “go through a boot camp and earn their way into the weight room.” While fitness is becoming more difficult, community service has been facing its own issues as welll. With only four participants signed up, Susan Swanson, Director of Community Outreach, notes her frustration with the “disappointing outcome.” In the past, when everyone did both community service and fitness, Swanson was charged with finding meaningful afterschool programs for eighty-some students. However, many students and faculty members did not want to leave campus, meaning that most students did service such as helping in the Lower School library, or working in the greenhouse. Though Swanson lamented the fact that only four students signed up for fitness this winter, she is happy that the new system allows the participants to go off campus. With the new schedule, the students do off-campus service twice per week doing activities such as tutoring at Cook Wissahickon Elementary and two days on-campus, continuing to do the former service activities; the fifth day the students are off.