An integral part of the student experience
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- Scott Wade, Director of Outreach and
Public Purpose
The Spence School has an enduring tradition of outreach into the community. In her 1910 commencement address, Clara Spence said, “We are only parts of the whole, and it is only when the separate self loses itself and the great self is recognized as that for the sake of which we are living in the world, that happiness and service are possible.”
Now, so many years later, community outreach is not so much an activity as a state of mind at Spence, something that happens through small efforts and large on a daily basis, teaching important lessons about the needs of others and encouraging an awareness of the world outside the school. At Spence, the Director of Outreach and Public Purpose facilitates these efforts by developing and managing opportunities—from local to global—for community service.
In the Lower School, service learning is a local affair, with young students helping to beautify their school and donate their time and talents to neighboring institutions — like creating brightly decorated Band-aid boxes for children receiving treatment at the Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai. For middle schoolers, it might be helping with the lunch program at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, or volunteering at the Yorkville Common Pantry. And for Upper School students, it’s anything from after school tutoring at the Harlem Children’s Zone, to participating in AIDS Walk New York, to spending part of spring vacation helping with relief efforts in Mobile, Alabama after Hurricane Katrina.
community outreach is not so much an activity as a state of mind at Spence"
At Spence, students have many options in community service opportunities. Rather than community service being a requirement for graduation, Spence students develop an instilled desire to help the world outside of school. Virtually all students participate in some form of community service, and many volunteer their time and skills to more than one cause. Our students know that community outreach is a vital part of the well-rounded Spence education. A tradition dating to Spence’s earliest days, community service is an integral part of the student experience – woven into the fabric of the school itself, it is, simply, “something we do.”