Community Service
The community service program at Lawrence Woodmere Academy spans all three divisions, providing our students with many opportunities to demonstrate servitium -- as our school motto suggests. Lawrence Woodmere Academy was founded with a mission of service to others and is still driven by this principle today. We feel strongly that students should contribute to their community, both in and out of school, as well as engage in social activism. Our curriculum, making use of multiple perspectives, reinforces this understanding and encourages responses to address the needs of others.
Our community service activities include Lower School students running a school store to raise money to save the rainforest, Middle School students facilitating anti-bias workshops, and Upper School students participating in programs to help those less fortunate. Our program is responsive to events as they happen. For examples, students raised funds and collected clothing to assist the relief efforts in Haiti. One group of students organized a school-wide Tolerance Day and educated the community about recent hate crimes legislation in New York State. Another group has worked with the Parent Association to introduce recycling to the school. In addition, we maintain an ongoing micro-credit fund to provide loans to entrepreneurs in impoverished communities in the USA and abroad. During the holiday season, we run food and clothing drives with the cooperation of Long Island and New York City organizations. These are just a few examples of how our students accept their responsibility to make positive contributions in whatever way they can.
Recent Community Service Programs Include
- Concern World Wide assemblies
- Kids Who Care fundraisers
- St. Jude’s Math-a-thon
- Anti-Bias Consortium
- Community projects
- Visits from the Little Shelter
- Toy and Clothing Drives
- Food and Supply Drives
- Peer & Lower School Tutoring
- Sustainability Club recycling program
- Advocacy letter writing
These consciousness-raising initiatives are supported through the activities of student clubs and are woven into the fabric of the school's daily life. In addition, the Upper School has a community service requirement for graduation. Our goal is to graduate students who will make community service a lifelong commitment.
Service Requirements
9th Grade
Service to the School:
Each trimester, freshmen run a charity drive targeting local or national issues. Past drives included canned goods and clothing for locally disadvantaged, and cell phones for soldiers.
The freshmen community service learning experience takes place within the school community. Students may assist in Lower School classes or during Pre-School lunch, help in the library, manage sports teams, or tour prospective students. Ninth grade students help run our annual Thanksgiving celebration, the Harvest Festival. They are also responsible for serving lunch to the entire LWA community.
Minimum In School Requirement: 30 hours
(approximately 1 period per week)
10th Grade
Activism and Global Awareness:
As part of the Communication Arts Rotation, sophomores take an integrated service-learning and public-speaking class which introduces them to ways they can help tackle global issues and communicate persuasively about them to a larger audience. Topics covered may include environmental, economic, human rights, or health concerns. Students hone their web-based research skills and learn to determine the authenticity of sources. They also learn how to mount an effective campaign using promotional materials (posters or leaflets) and speaking skills (pitch, tone, posture, gestures, eye contact). Each class launches a fund-raiser to support a chosen cause, and maintains the school’s micro-credit fund, which distributes small development loans to businesses throughout the developing world. The course culminates in a presentation to the school about the chosen cause.
In addition, sophomores are required to participate in an overnight trip to Manhattan where they learn about homelessness, and spend a day volunteering at sites throughout the city through the Youth Services Opportunities Project (YSOP).
Minimum In School Requirement: 30 hours
(YSOP and one trimester of Community Service)
11th and 12th Grades
Service to the Community:
Upperclassmen focus on a long-term project that should arise from their earlier work. Having found an area of interest, they spend their junior and senior years devoting themselves to this cause. Some students start these projects as early as their freshman year. Recent projects have seen students volunteer at the Anchor Camp in Long Beach for developmentally challenged children and adults, the Massapequa Hospital for Animals, the New York Aquarium, the Epilepsy Foundation, and Morry’s Camp. Some students have also dedicated their time to communities both in the United States and abroad: as far away as Costa Rica and Fiji, and as close as post-Hurricane Katrina in Houston.
Minimum Requirement: 40 hours (total)
The Senior Technology and Research (STAR) Presentation:
In the fall of junior year, the Community Service Coordinator meets with students in small groups to make sure they have found an area of focus for their community service project. In the spring of senior year, students work in small groups of similar interest to create their senior STAR Presentation, in which they demonstrate what they have learned in the areas of service, technology, active literacy, and research. Each group presents its work to a panel of Upper School faculty and administrators; a few outstanding projects may be selected for presentation to the student body during weekly assembly in Hessel Hall.
Minimum Requirement: 40 hours (total)
