By Ella Schwalbe
Rye Country Day School plans to expand its community service curriculum with the help of a $250,000 grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation.
Students enrolled in the service curriculum have worked with such organizations as Feeding Westchester, Rye Nature Center, Don Bosco, and Broadview Senior Living.
Now with the help of the E.E. Ford grant, the school plans to expand that curriculum, which it calls the Community Engagement Fellowship.
The expanded curriculum provides “an exciting opportunity to live up to our mission” that will help students “develop the knowledge, skills, and practice they need to become purpose-driven leaders once they graduate,” said RCDS Upper School Principal Jenny Heath.
The expanded curriculum is to be rolled out over the next several years, beginning with a ninth-grade program next fall, said Assistant Director of Public Purpose Noelle Morano. In the following years, programs for the older grades are to start up.
The grant is to be matched by donations from the school community.
In keeping with the RCDS founding motto, “Not for Self, but for Service,” the school first used a $50,000 E.E. Ford grant in 2016 to launch the curriculum. For four weeks in the summer, up to 20 high school students partnered with local nonprofits and conducted an independent project to support that group.
“Students can choose to opt in or opt out as much as they want, but with the new E.E. Ford Grant, ninth through 12th graders will have multiple built-in touch points to engage with public purpose in a meaningful way,” Morano said.
Freshmen will first study the concepts of public purpose and social impact, and the demographics and issues affecting Westchester County, and then begin to explore their own service interests.
As sophomores, they will identify an area of interest to research locally, like food insecurity, education inequity, or environmental justice. The programming will move outside of the classroom in junior year and connect students with community-based initiatives. They’ll be able to choose one of three paths: assisting an organization that has a volunteer program, developing a year-long project, or getting involved in local government to explore public policy.
The longer time frame is intended to help students form close connections with their partner organizations, as well as the people they are supporting.
Eda Buyuk, a current RCDS junior who worked with Feeding Westchester over the summer, said, “By hosting a series of food drives, I was able to raise over 2,400 meals for local families who struggle with food insecurity, also bringing awareness to this issue that exists right here at home.”
She added: “If I had more time than just the summer, I could have expanded my project by hosting more regular food drives long-term and also taking initiative to hand-deliver meals.”
The program will conclude in senior year with students mentoring ninth graders and considering how they can continue their work beyond high school.
Students are excited about the expanded opportunities to connect with local organizations.
“You could gather support from a group of students and create a little circle of people to fight any cause,” Buyuk said.
