Oiler Update: Community Service - A Way of Life at East Alton-Wood River

In 2012-13, the East Alton-Wood River Board of Education wanted a tangible way to teach its high school students about the values of serving humankind as well as the local community. Although this value could be taught in the abstract in a classroom, the Board believed that the best way to internalize those values was to actually require a reasonable number of hours per year spent in community service, in order to receive a high school diploma.

In other words, “There’s nothing like actually doing.” So, in addition to the typical graduation requirements of Carnegie Unit credits, with those credits composed of specific credit requirements in the various subject areas, EAWR students were now going to be required to amass 10 hours of documented community service each year.

 Our current Class of 2015 is in the third year of the program, so our seniors will need at least 30 total hours of community service credit for graduation. Our Class of 2016 will be the first class to have this requirement for its entire four years of high school, with this class and the following classes needing 40 hours of service in their high school career to graduate.

We have been proud of the numerous contributions our students have made in service to others in the last three years and know they will continue to impact people’s lives and our East Alton - Wood River - Hartford community in the future.

Just some of the examples of our student service have been:

• Baking & decorating cookies for local nursing home residents;
• Working at Community Hope Center in Cottage Hills;
• No-charge leaf-raking or snow-shoveling for senior citizens;
• Performing outside clean-up work at local parks;
• Serving in local food pantries;
• Assisting local service clubs (Lions, Rotary) in their service work, such as fund-raising, Salvation Army bell-ringing at Christmas, etc.;
• Tutoring elementary students in reading and math at E. Alton 1^st United Methodist Big Wednesday program;
• Volunteering at the Wood River Triathlon and Ice Cream Social;
• Assisting the Keasler Center in East Alton with its senior citizen parties;
• Providing Christmas door decorations at Beverly Farms;
• Helping with the Eastwood School Easter Egg hunt;
• Working a fund-raising “roadblock” for the Alzheimer’s Foundation; and
• Serving as day camp counselors

These activities not only teach the students an appreciation for community service: they provide the sort of “habit of service” that as adults they will be asked to give for years to come. Education is all about the instilling of habits, after all. These include habits of study; habits of lifelong learning and curiosity; habits of teamwork; and habits of good citizenship. Why not also instill the habits of service - of giving back. This is the aim of EAWR’s Community Service graduation requirement and why we are so proud of our kids and are glad that we can instill in them a life-long habit of service to others.

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