There is a verse from the Gospel of Mark that Mrs. Connelly reads aloud at the start of every school year, standing at the front of the gymnasium with every student seated on the floor before her: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” It is not a suggestion, she tells them. It is an invitation. And this year, the students of St. Sebastian Catholic School have answered it in ways that have moved the entire community to tears and to action.
Now in its second year, the Hearts & Hands service learning initiative has grown far beyond what anyone expected when it launched quietly last fall. What began as a monthly canned food drive has blossomed into a school-wide culture of giving one where second graders organize sock donations for the local shelter, fifth graders tutor younger students during lunch recess, and entire classrooms spend Friday afternoons writing encouraging letters to residents at St. Catherine’s Care Center just three blocks away.
“We don’t want service to be something our students do once a year at a food pantry and forget about on the drive home. We want it woven into who they are into how they see the person sitting next to them.”— Mrs. Patricia Connelly, Principal
The program’s crown jewel this spring has been the Knights for Neighbors project, spearheaded by the fourth and fifth grade classes. Students identified three families in the parish community who were facing hardship a single mother recovering from surgery, an elderly parishioner whose home needed minor repairs, and a refugee family newly arrived in the neighborhood. Over the course of six weeks, the students organized fundraisers, coordinated volunteer shifts with parents, and personally delivered meals, supplies, and handmade cards to each family. The children did not ask for recognition. Several of them asked if they could do it again next month.
Father Thomas McGrath of St. Sebastian Parish, who has been a quiet champion of the initiative since its inception, celebrated a special school Mass in honor of the students’ service earlier this month. In his homily, he told the children something that many of their parents later said they were still thinking about on the drive home: that holiness is not found in grand gestures, but in small ones done with great love.
As the school year draws to a close, the Hearts & Hands team made up of teachers, parents, and student ambassadors is already planning next year’s calendar of service. If you are a family, business, or organization in the St. Sebastian community who would like to partner with the program, the school office would love to hear from you. Because here, service is not an extracurricular. It is the curriculum.
