Kyle Zhang ’27
The Community Service Student Board unveiled new community service opportunities through “Students Serve” and Strafford Friends initiatives.
Student Serve is held every Monday during Domino in the Chapel and allows any Upper School student to join. Rebecca Brinks, the Community Service Coordinator, says that when creating Students Serve, she wanted to make it easy for all students to attend. “The idea for Students Serve was to create something that was consistent and easy to participate in when you had time, but it was flexible. So the idea of doing something once a week, on a drop-in no signup basis, keeps it quick at the end of the day.”
Students Serve began on September 25, with an inaugural event of packing snack bags for Bethesda Project’s Our Brothers’ Place. Each Monday since then, a new student club or organization has taken the lead in Student Serve meetings, bringing variety and aligning the activities with the group’s interests and purpose. Brinks explains, “We have been inviting different clubs and organizations to host Students Serve, for example, the Fashion Club hosted and the project was geared towards design. So we decorated cloth bags that were donated to the St. Barnabas Food Pantry.” Other clubs such as the Black Student Union, Install-It, and Vestry have also hosted.
Photo courtesy of Bridget Murphy ’25
Elizabeth Hershey ’25, a member of the Community Service Board, comments on what Students Serve means to her. She states, “Student Serve is an awesome program that makes community service more accessible at EA. By spending just 15 or 20 minutes during domino anyone can make a difference in another’s life. For example, a guest at UCHC approached me with a note written by an EA student in a snack pack. He told me that the note got him through some very tough times.”
Strafford Friends is a school for neurodiverse students that partners with Episcopal every other Tuesday in the Newtown Post. A group of girls in their life skills program come to Episcopal to interact with high school students. Brinks explains, “Strafford Friends approached us last Spring because they were looking for opportunities for this cohort of girls to have opportunities to practice their social skills with peers. These are girls who maybe aren’t uncomfortable coming to different places or talking to people they don’t know. It happened to work out that they could come to us every other lunch period on Tuesday at the Newtown Post.”
Photo courtesy of Bridget Murphy ’25
During the Lunch period, the group participates in various activities. “We have done all sorts of different things like projects, we’ve gone on hikes, and we cut snowflakes. The feedback from Strafford Friends is that it is an amazing experience for their girls and it has given them an opportunity to practice and improve their comfort level in a different space. They all say that it’s the best part of their week,” said Brinks.
Talia Thomas ’25 explains, “I love having the opportunity to give these girls someone they can look up to. The little things mean so much to the girls and it’s so wonderful seeing them happy.” Hershey adds, “Strafford Friends may seem trivial to me, but to the girls, it is a chance to grow, to become comfortable with people they don’t know very well, and to develop social skills that will help them in the future. This experience has taught me that doing acts of service doesn’t have to be complicated, it can just be chatting and having lunch!”
Brinks suggests that community service “is something that’s really simple for us to do but has so much positive meaning and energy for them and for us too, but it’s just a great example of how we have so many resources here.”