 | Blankets and beans, goats and coats…community outreach and service is an essential part of All Saints’ Day School and reflects a deep commitment to our mission that emphasizes “…a nurturing environment of spiritual growth and service to others.” Encouraging each other to care for others in tangible and intangible ways has become part of the fabric of who we are as a school, and who our students become.
Community service is defined for our students as giving their efforts, willingly and freely, to an individual or organization that benefits from their help and/or improves the quality of life for the community. The significance of our program can be seen not only in the outward impact that we have on those that are served by our outreach efforts, but perhaps even more strikingly in how students grow and are positively changed by their experiences.
The Outreach program involves students at every age in school-wide projects and in service areas appropriate to each grade level.
One of our Core Values reads, “Builds a community of service.” There are countless ways in which our students, faculty, staff, trustees, and families live out this core value every day. Perhaps more importantly, we are developing citizens who truly understand the joy and importance of serving their communities and making a difference in the world.
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Community Outreach by Grades:The Outreach program involves students at every age in school-wide projects and in service areas appropriate to each grade level.
- ECU – Holiday stuffed animal collection (given to children of Nancy’s Project*)
- First – Sock drive (given to Nancy’s Project)
- Second – “Warm things” drive (taken to Dorothy’s Place homeless shelter by seventh graders)
- Third – Makes sandwiches to be taken to Dorothy’s Place
- Fourth – Collects food, towels, and blankets for animals at SPCA and raises money for UNICEF
- Fifth – Sells ice cream sundaes and donates all proceeds to Community Partnership for Youth, which provides tutoring and enrichment classes to low-income students
- Sixth – Visits Carmel Valley Manor (retirement community) every month to sing to and visit with the residents in the mid-level facility
- Seventh – Spends three days working at Dorothy’s Place, preparing and serving meals
- Eighth – Volunteers two days at the Monterey County Food Bank, prepares two I-HELP dinners at All Saints’ Church for local homeless men, and each 8th grader contributes an additional 15 hours of community service to his/her chosen organization.
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School-wide Outreach Projects
- Bean-bagging: Each week, students bag 1,000 pounds of pinto beans for Nancy’s Project, and the School community collects funds to buy the beans. The school community has bagged over 500,000 pounds of beans over the past 25 years, feeding countless families in the Salinas Valley.
- Spring Caring Cans: Coins and more are collected for All Saints’ sister school – St. Patrick’s School in Haiti, the Haiti Goat Project, and International Health Emissaries
- Food & Toy Drives: At Thanksgiving and Christmas there are all-School food box drives, toy collections and a Christmas ornament collection to benefit those in need in our region.
- And over the years, the All Saints’ community has responded to other needs in our region, country, and world: Hurricane Katrina, 911, and Tsunami Relief, to name just a recent few.
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| Service within the All Saints’ community Practicing the values of service and outreach within our own school provides an opportunity for our students to take pride in and help their school and its members.
- ECU & First – grounds cleanup
- Second – clothes pickup, compost crew
- Third – lower grade recycling pick-up
- Fourth – flag team
- Fifth – bulk mailing assistants
- Sixth – serving as acolytes, clothes pick up
- Seventh – serving as acolytes, bean bagging set up
- Eighth – serving as acolytes, special event set up, upper grade recycling
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| | All Saints’ has been widely recognized for our long history of community outreach, of which our bean bagging program is probably most well-known. For over 25 years, on an almost weekly basis, our students, parents, faculty and staff have bagged pinto beans, totaling over a half million pounds, for delivery to Salinas Valley farm worker families in need. |
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