Hundreds of students at The Wheatley School participated in the annual Day of Service and Learning by giving back to dozens of local groups.
The morning of Oct. 24 began with students visiting three presentations by non-profit organizations. Some students then attended off-site activities, leaving around 10 a.m. and returning before the end of the school day.
Over 500 students participated in 49 service activities.
Some of the onsite activities included making birthday boxes for homeless children, designing and building sturdy dog houses that will be donated to animal shelters in need, assembling 1,600 hygiene kits filled with essential sanitary items to support individuals facing homelessness and extreme poverty and constructing new planting beds for an expansion of the gardens.
“It was founded in September of 2009 and it was founded on the principles of service that were done following the events of 9/11,” Samantha Vulpin, co-host of the event, said.
The event has been held in the district for about 15 years. This year, Nikki Girgenti, an art teacher, and Vulpin, a special education teacher, hosted it for the first time.
“I love being involved in the school community, outside of the classroom,” Vulpin said when asked why she wanted to host the event this year.”Just getting to know the student body as a whole. I get an opportunity to learn more about the students outside of the classroom.”
Vulpin said the event is a day when students give back to various community groups by participating in many volunteer opportunities onsite and offsite. She said these opportunities give students a day to reflect on volunteering.
The speakers, from from 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m., were the North Shore Land Alliance, Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide and the North Shore Animal League. They spoke to the students about the various opportunities that their organizations offered.
From 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., some students went offsite and some stayed on campus to work on various volunteer activities.
Vulpin said students then returned to the school for a wellness fair where they participated in mindfulness activities.
“Since they’ve been working all day helping people, they should fuel themselves and participate in these mindful activities like walking on the track, reading books, listening to podcasts,” Vulpin said.
“Students are getting the opportunity to get out in their community to work in a variety of different areas from environmental volunteering to medical volunteering or working with youngsters and seniors, they’re getting a breath of experience,” Girgenti said.
Girgenti said these experiences might lead the students to additional opportunities later in life or inspire them to go on a different career path.
“We sometimes forget there’s a whole world around us, and this lets students get that hands-on experience and something they generally might not have the opportunity to do,” Girgenti said.
Girgenti said the scope of this event is the most impressive to her. She said 521 students leave the campus to participate in service work, while other students stay in the school also doing service work and Girgenti said the “amount of teamwork involved” shows that when you work together, you can get a lot done.
Vulpin said she hopes students learned the importance of giving back from this event.
Girgenti said she would like to see this program be sustained at the school and continue to have more outside opportunities.
“We are very open to anything,” Girgenti said. “If there’s an organization that wants to join, they can reach out to us and every year we’re bringing more variety to what we offer. So our vision for the future of this event is for it to be sustained and expanded upon.”
