Saint Joseph School - Fairhaven, Massachusetts

LEARNING FOR LIFE SINCE 1908

COMMUNITY SERVICE: Doing for Others

Students at St. Joseph School are very involved in community service and Christian outreach. As a school, we help to support a boy from Uganda through the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging. Each month a different class raises the $30 for his sponsorship and writes letters or makes cards for him. At Christmas, there are several opportunities for Christian outreach, such as Operation Christmas Child, when students and families wrap shoeboxes for Christmas and fill them with small toys and toiletry items for poor children around the world. There is a school-wide collection for Market Ministries in New Bedford, and this year the National Junior Honor Society organized a Pajama Project, asking St. Joseph families to donate new pajamas for children in foster homes and homeless shelters.

On going throughout the school year is our monthly collection of canned goods for Shepherd's Pantry, as well as outreach to local nursing homes. In March, grades 5 and 6 visit Alden Court to share their Science Fair projects with the residents. Students in middle school spend time with residents at Our Lady's Haven, doing craft projects with them, playing Bingo with them, presenting a Christmas concert and Live Stations of the Cross for them. Younger students may correspond with nursing home residents as pen pals. Each classroom often pursues their own community service project — such as the way grade 3 leads the school's recycling program, showing good stewardship of God's Creation.