Westminster Serves the Community

Westminster students and faculty boarded vans and buses early in the morning Oct. 3 to visit 19 locations in Connecticut as a part of the school’s annual all-school Community Service Day.

View the photo gallery

Among the places they visited and the activities they performed were:

The entire Third Form spent the day cleaning and painting locker rooms, picnic tables and an outdoor building. They also raked leaves, cleaned up brush and trails, took apart and cleaned up a street-hockey rink, and dug a pathway for a sidewalk.

Members of the Fourth Form broke into groups to clean up the exterior of the property, dig a hole to help repair plumbing, clean out a building that is scheduled to be torn down and rake leaves.

Two Westminster students visited each classroom, working with the children during the course of their normal school day. In the kindergarten rooms, Westminster students helped children write a story and rotated through different learning centers to help with lessons. In a second grade classroom, the volunteers helped the children work through math problems in their workbooks.

The Westminster work crew read dates on cans and boxes in the pantry to make sure they were not out of date and could be put on shelves for members of the community. They also helped move cartons of food into the pantry from deliveries that came from supermarkets, and they cut and folded flyers and handouts. Everyone ate lunch in the kitchen with members of the community.

When the Westminster volunteers arrived, they were introduced to their day’s task: offering lunch to about 80 clients. The students and faculty were asked to help create a feeling of respect and welcome for the clients. Among their jobs were wrapping napkins and utensils, welcoming clients, handing out food and drink tickets, and waiting on people as they came in, seating them and bringing them a meal. As the crowd thinned out, the volunteers cleaned the tables and returned the dining room to proper order.

Visiting students and faculty assisted in the classrooms, served on a panel for the eighth grade class, performed some clerical work and played with children at recess.

Following a tour of the Fidelco facilities, volunteers had an opportunity to “meet” some guide dogs, and while blindfolded, follow an obstacle course with one of the dogs. The rest of the day was spent cleaning travel vans and dog play areas, and planting flowers at the entranceway.

Sixth Formers and faculty spent the day weeding carrots and kale.

Sixth Formers and faculty traveled along a four-mile section of the river and picked trash off the banks. Among the finds this year were a folding table, several watering cans, plastic bottles and cups, and flip flops, among other things. The group then stopped for lunch at a grassy spot along the river and enjoyed a great fall afternoon.

The students and faculty visiting St. Elizabeth’s House prepared and served a meal to the residents and to people in need in the facility’s Friendship Center, which opens for lunch every day.

Volunteers packed tomatoes for mobile delivery trucks that travel throughout Hartford and Tolland counties.

The volunteers raked leaves, made scarecrows for Halloween, painted residents’ nails, served food in the dining room and chatted with residents having lunch.

Service at the farm involved weeding garden beds, spreading hay to prevent weed growth, shoveling out animal stalls, cleaning up the barn, removing drip irrigation tubing and plastic row covers from crops that have been harvested, smoothing a section of the property and replanting grass, and cutting down the entire raspberry crop and preparing it for burning.

Those who worked at Eno Hall prepared food for the Simsbury Senior Center. They made egg salad, turkey, and tuna sandwiches, prepared bowls of cole slaw, and baked several batches of chocolate chip and sugar cookies. Others, who were not working in the kitchen, set up tables and chairs, and laid out placemats and plastic ware. At noon, they served lunch to the seniors and performed various songs on the piano, guitar and ukulele. After the performance, the students washed dishes, cleared plates, and reset the tables and chairs.

Volunteers weeded, mulched, pruned and raked at the site in Simsbury.

Students and faculty walked with residents outdoors, played cards and escorted them to lunch.

Volunteers unpacked bags that were dropped off for donation, including clothes and household items. They also organized household items in one room, and sorted shoes and clothes for adults and children in another room. When the Gifts of Love truck arrived from its Hartford pick-up, they helped unload donated food and put it in boxes in the shopping room, the ‘backpack’ room and the storage room. Once the truck was unloaded, they stocked shelves and stored the extras.

“Westminster’s all-school Community Service Day makes me proud to be associated with a community of genuinely concerned young people and colleagues,” said Gloria Connell, director of community service at Westminster. “We are all in positions to give of ourselves, our time and our energy. As educators, we model habits of the heart, service to others and compassion for our neighbors. These practices embody the truest secret to success in life: serving others. Service is a lesson experientially taught at Westminster School, lessons that will hopefully become part of our students’ character and lives.”