Expectations for Special Olympics Volunteers

All student volunteers who signed up for the morning or all-day shifts should arrive on campus by 7:00AM on Sunday, October 18th. Please wear Pingree gear and sturdy footwear! With very few exceptions, this is a Rain or Shine type of event. Please come dressed for the weather! 


Our expectations of Pingree volunteers:

1. Experience instead of document - please separate yourself from your phone/camera. Be fully present!

2. Engage with our guests. Introduce yourself, ask how you can assist people, get to know your team and that team's fans.

3. Look for opportunities to serve instead of waiting to be asked.

4. Encourage and celebrate!

5. Be conscious of what you are learning while engaging in this activity. See if you can bring some of those lessons back to your family, friends, classes and extracurricular activities.

Backpacks and School supplies still needed!

Thank you to everyone who has generously donated to this year's backpack and school supply drive. During their Community Education time on October 20, the sophomore class will be packing these supplies into backpacks and sending them off to students all over the North Shore.

Last year we were able to collect and stock 45 backpacks, and are hoping to do the same. However, although we have reached our goal of supplies (though more are always welcomed), we are still short backpacks... we need 30 more to meet this year's goal.

Please consider picking one up this weekend (high-quality, inexpensive ones are available at Target, CVS, Walgreens, and WalMart) and dropping it off in the donation bin in the Theater Lobby.

Thank you!

Welcome back!

We have an exciting year ahead of us in the world of service and civic engagement. Already plans are underway to host the Special Olympics (October 18th), and also to welcome Special Olympians back to campus for Concord Day (October 24th). Volunteer sign-ups will be made available to students in the next week.

Sophomores will be packing donating school supplies into backpacks after a visit from Community Giving Tree Executive Director Leslie Levenson -- the drive is still underway! Sophomores also have the opportunity to prepare, serve, and share meals at the Open Door Food Pantry in Gloucester (details soon to come!)

9th graders will soon sign up for their semester-long stewardship assignments. Find out more about this opportunity by clicking on the 9th Grade Stewardship tab above.

Throughout the year, Pingree will also engage in a holiday gift drive for Wellspring House (focusing on teen gifts), a winter Superfood Drive, and a spring rummage sale to raise money for the Purposeful Giving fund.

Please check in regularly for up-to-date information about our ongoing service and civic engagement activities!

Giant Rummage Sale!

On Saturday May 16th, Pingree will host its second annual Giant Rummage Sale in order to raise money for the Purposeful Giving Fund, which awards small grants to students so that they may support organizations of their choice. So far, Purposeful Giving grants have been awarded in support of Windrush Farms, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, The Jimmy Fund, Epilepsy Awareness, and to support an Eagle Scout project. 

Please consider donating items for the sale! We can accept everything except TVs (and other large electronic devices) and mattresses. 

Drop-off runs this week from 7:30-8:00AM, and 3:30-5:00PM. Please bring your donations to the Roosevelt Barn, located half-way up the last driveway on the left as you leave campus.

Any questions, please call Anna McCoy at extension 365. Thank you! 

Pingree launches a new summer service opportunity!

This August 16-21, eight Pingree students will have the opportunity to take part in a Pingree pilot program called Live-Serve-Learn-Play in beautiful Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Modeled after our trip to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, this program immerses students in the the culture and community of the place where they will be performing service. This is based on service-learning best practices that state that meaningful service requires knowledge of the community that comes best through immersion.

Accompanied by chaperones, students will live in a home on Stacy Boulevard. Each morning they will travel in pairs to a service site, where they will have the opportunity to interact and network with both the staff and clients of that particular organization. Afternoons will be spent learning from the experts - marine biologists, fishermen, historians, artists - about the community of Gloucester. These hands-on learning experiences include studio demonstrations and workshops, whale watching, tide-pooling, and much more. Evenings will allow for play time, whether kayaking to Ten Pound Island, taking in an outdoor concert at Stage Fort Park, or biking to Good Harbor Beach.

We are very excited about this offering - please explore the Live-Serve-Learn-Play link above for more information.

Pingree visits The Open Door

On Sunday, March 1 student council reps Andrew Murdock '17, Nina Lubeck '17, and Anna Landgren '18 visited The Open Door in Gloucester to prepare, serve and share a meal. Joined by Pingree faculty members Anna McCoy and Alan McCoy, along with Tina McCoy (P '00, '01, '10), the crew prepared a delicious dinner of baked ziti, steamed broccoli, cheesy garlic biscuits, and yogurt parfaits for dessert.

We wish to express our deep gratitude to the staff and patrons of the Open Door, and especially to Master Chef Kenn whose humor and grace set the tone for an afternoon of fun and delicious food.

Andrew Murdock and Nina Lubeck

Our menu (art by Elizabeth Landgren)

Applications for summer service trip to the Rosebud Reservation

Applications for the summer service trip to South Dakota are now available online. Students may access them through the following link:

Rosebud Application

Please visit the Rosebud 2015 page of this blog for the trip information.

Superfood Drive

On February 20th Pingree will roll out its second annual Superfood Drive!

What is a Superfood Drive? Well, it's a lot like a regular food drive, except that we will focus on collecting foods that are nutrient dense, rather than just filling.

In the United States, food insecurity ("the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food") and obesity are closely related. When families are forced to choose between paying bills and buying groceries, many make the choice that gives them the most calories at the lowest cost - usually this means low-quality food. This has led many people in our country to the state of being overfed, but undernourished.

Our goal with our Superfood Drive is to provide two hunger relief organizations (Acord Food Pantry in Hamilton, and The Open Door in Gloucester) with high-quality, nutrient-dense (and tasty!) foods for their clients.

We will be collecting donations in the theater entrance. There will be cardboard boxes labeled by class, each of whom will be asked to focus on a different category of food.

Seniors will focus on Proteins:

• Canned cold water fish (such as tuna and salmon)
• Canned beans and legumes
• Nuts and seeds (pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, almonds, walnuts, cashews)
• Nut butters (natural and non-hydrogenated Almond, Peanut, Macadamia and Tahini butters)

Juniors will focus on Grains:

• Brown or wild rice
• Quinoa or couscous
• Wheat berries, amaranth, teff
• Steel cut or rolled oats
• Whole wheat or brown rice pastas
• Gluten-free pastas
• Whole grain cereals

Sophomores will focus on Fruits and Vegetables:

• Canned fruit and vegetables (low-sodium and packed in water, not syrup)
• Dried fruits (preferably with no added sugars)
• Canned soups (low sodium)
• Tomato sauce 

Freshmen will focus on Herbs, Spices, Tea, and Oils:

• Green and white teas
• Herbs and spices (oregano, basil, black pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, dill)
• Olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil
• Parmalat or another highly pasteurized milk (refrigeration not needed)
• Almond, soy, rice milk (refrigeration not needed)

Faculty and Staff will focus on COFFEE! 

The drive will run from February 20 - March 12. 

Sources:

"Hunger and Health." Superfood Drive. 2015. http://www.superfooddrive.org/hunger-and-health/.

Tracy School 2015

This March will mark the fifth year that Pingree and the Tracy School in Lynn have partnered for a service project to work with 400 students in grades K-5 on multimedia art projects during the weekday mornings of Pingree's March vacation (March 16-27).

Past projects have included shadow boxes, puppets, mural painting, and quilting. This year we are excited to announce a partnership with artist Katherine Gasper who will be leading Pingree students in planning age-appropriate weaving projects to create with Tracy School students. 

Students who are interested in signing up to participate in this fun and meaningful partnership should go the sign up sheet and enter the requested information. You may sign up for as many or as few days as you would like. The day begins at 8:00 and ends by 12:00. Transportation and lunch will be provided. 

Additionally, we are looking for student leaders from the Junior Class. If you are interested, please speak with Ms. McCoy.

Summer Service Programs

It's hard to imagine planning for the summer while the snow blows outside. Yet it will be here soon (although, perhaps not soon enough!).

As people consider travel opportunities during this time, many students may reference service opportunities abroad.

Over the past decade we have seen an uptick in the number of companies and organizations who offer service trips abroad, and many parents have questions about choosing a program. As such, I have created a guide for parents to use as they evaluate and choose a program.

This guideline is based on personal and professional experiences with service travel (both domestic and abroad), evaluating programs while a graduate student in Portland, OR, and as the co-director of Pingree's culture and service trip to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Please visit the Evaluating Summer Service Programs page of this blog for the guideline.

Keeping Track

Three years ago, a group of Pingree faculty members convened to review our Community Service program so that it would better serve our students, faculty, and mission. 

One of the major shifts made by this committee was to phase out our 50-hour community service graduation requirement. This decision is in keeping with best practices of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, and puts us in the company of many other independent schools. Studies tell us that requiring community service hours in high school does not in fact deepen a student’s commitment to the “civic good”, nor is it a reliable predictor of civic participation as adults. Additionally, many organizations that host student volunteers experience tension surrounding mandatory hours, as these hours do not guarantee commitment, completion or a meaningful experience for either the volunteer or the agency. 

However, those same studies tell us that high school students who engage in service activities are more likely to volunteer into adulthood, and that volunteering during their adolescence may provide our students with the skills and networks they will need as adults in order to act upon civic concerns.

Our program shift was guided by our desire to create a culture of service at Pingree, rather than a requirement. This means that we have worked (and will continue to work) to embed service opportunities into our academic, art, and athletic programs. Parents, students and faculty members have been largely enthusiastic about this switch, but a question remains: Should we find some way of keeping track? My answer to this is yes... and no. 

When I took on the role of Director of Civic Engagement and Service Learning, a colleague of mine mentioned that while she was wholeheartedly in agreement with the elimination of required hours, it would still be beneficial to everyone involved if, during the college application program, we could account for a student's service commitments over their years at Pingree. Therefore, I maintain records of who participates in which Pingree-sponsored service activity and in what capacity (leader, school ambassador, volunteer, etc.). Thus, when a student begins the college process, students will have at their disposal a list of those activities in which they participated, along with a brief narrative about the activity.

The “no” part of this response gets at what we mean when we say “culture of service.” Service activities can – and should – be complex, frustrating, exhilarating, boring, life-changing, perplexing, and wonderful, and if our goal in service is to introduce our students to a world where all of those emotions can, and will, be felt at once then no hourly requirement can come close to serving that purpose, nor can counting hours keep track of the meaning we make from our service experiences. Additionally, by requiring service are we in fact negating the role that altruism plays altogether? If the focus of students’ participation in service becomes to accumulate hours, then we are not truly asking them to step outside of themselves in the service of others. What truly counts is what we learn when we serve, and ultimately how we treat each other.

As always, I welcome your feedback, thoughts and questions.

Sources:

Hart, Daniel, Thomas M. Donnelly, James Youniss, and Robert Atkins. “High School Community Service as a Predictor of Adult Voting and Volunteering.” American Education Research Journal 44:1 (2007): 197-219.

Mills, Steven D. “The Four Furies: Primary Tensions between Service-Learners and Host Agencies”. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (Fall 2012): 33-43.

Happy New Year...

and thank you - everyone - for your commitment to making the 2014 holiday season one of happiness for so many North Shore families.

Betty Louis '16

A consortium of advisor groups donated games, sporting equipment, dolls, puzzles, art supplies and much more to the Holiday Stores at Wellspring House in Gloucester and Pathways for Children in Beverly.

Ms. McCoy, Sophia Ricciardelli, & Betty Louis

Along with the advisor group toy drive, the Pingree Boys Varsity Hockey team collected three large boxes of gifts for the Toys for Tots Foundation. The toys were picked up on December 17 by United States Marine Corps Sergeant Richard Cable . Thank you to hockey captains Matt Cavanaugh, Mike Riley, Ryan Lovell and Chris Devito for organizing!