Overview

Lancaster Country Day School is deeply committed to encouraging and supporting learning through service for its students. Leadership, empathy and communication skills are some of the rewards gained in this process. These experiences encourage students to become more effective participants in their communities and the world as they reach adulthood.

At LCDS, learning through service is divided into three unique programs, one each at the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School levels.

Lower School

As early as Lower School (preschool–grade 5) LCDS students are introduced to the need for reaching out and helping others. Through many hands-on lessons, young students explore reasons for giving and its role in our society. Students learn about service to the community within a school-wide culture of giving, and focus on family, friendship and the classroom community.

Lower School Projects

The Lower School has a number of division-wide activities for projects of regional, national and even international scope.

For example, the Lower School students embark upon an annual week-long reading project during which they solicit pledges based on how many books they read or have read to them. The proceeds are then directed to the 'good cause,' such as disaster relief, about which they learn during class time and weekly meetings.

In the spring of 2005, the Lower School raised over $11,000 for victims of the tsunami that ravaged Asia, India, Sri Lanka and eastern Africa, and in the autumn of 2005, raised over $13,000 for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In addition, most of the individual classes have a number of service learning projects in which Lower School students participate during the academic year. Projects include:

The entire fourth grade took its Memory Project to Homestead Village, a retirement community in Lancaster, and met with residents who had memories to share. The students, using HyperStudio software, incorporated sound effects, pictures, graphics, and text to interpret the residents' memories into stories. The multi-media stories were then shared at a special Memory Project luncheon for all Homestead Village residents.

The third grade traveled to Lancaster city to continue work begun by their Upper School counterparts the previous spring. The Market Street Kids Park was completely refurbished by Upper Schoolers (spring 2005) and that following autumn, the third-graders planted bulbs, weeded and did general clean-up so that the Park is now suitable for use by families who live around it. Third-graders also participated in planting trees and other indigenous plants to prevent erosion along the banks of a local stream.

Second graders color "warming bags" used by the Lancaster Meals on Wheels program. Each Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day, students brighten the plainly-colored bags, which carry the hot meals provided by Meals on Wheels for its clients throughout Lancaster County.

Middle School

It is through service learning projects that Middle School students (grades 6–8) begin to learn about root causes of need, not simply how to respond to its manifestations.

Service learning projects are primarily organized through advisee groups. Every group, led by a faculty member, has from six to eight students who participate in a variety of service learning activities, some within the LCDS community while others extend beyond School walls.

Middle School Projects

Service learning projects typical of the Middle School have included:

The “Penny Wars,” a unique idea from a current eighth-grader, raised over $5500 for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (autumn 2005). The entire Middle School participated.

All Middle School students collected supplies for the first-grade class at Tyson-Schoener Elementary School, located in Reading, Pa. (December 2004 and 2005). The students collect enough colored pencils, crayons, markers, puzzles, dictionaries and activity books to fill a goody bag for each first-grader.

Middle School students participate in the annual Martin Luther King, Jr “Day of Service ,” held each January to commemorate the works and memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. Past service includes delivering for Meals on Wheels, a mural project at a new transitional residence for women and children, and delivering dental care supplies to various non-profit homes, shelters and social services centers.

The sixth grade cleans up and maintains a county roadside, and participates in Earth Day activities. In their science class, they make posters about recycling that are hung throughout the School to encourage recycling among our entire School community.

Each week a seventh grade advisor group partners with the Preschool to help the younger ones to work on a craft, project, or just sit and read a book.

Eighth graders continue to help out at the Milagro House, a shelter for women and children in transition. Typically, the students baby-sit for mothers who have appointments or job interviews, do chores around the shelter, plant gardens and weed, bake cookies for the residents, and tutor young adults in the GED program.

Upper School

As a culmination of service learning at LCDS, Upper School students (grades 9–12) are encouraged to pursue independent projects in addition to their service-related classroom activities. Several courses have service activities incorporated into the curricula, such as the eleventh grade American history course.

The Outstanding Community Service Designation

Through more in-depth projects that can last an entire school year, students learn how to enhance the communities in which they live via projects that complement their individual interests and abilities.

Students who complete fifty hours of service on an individual project and write a paper and a reflective essay about the social issues from which their project stems receive an Outstanding Community Service Designation. The OCSD is a unique achievement for Upper School students to have on their school transcripts and resumes.

In the past, OCSD projects have included training a live-in “seeing eye” dog, raising funds for the central Pennsylvania Multiple Sclerosis Society, and volunteering with a local non-profit theater group to stage-manage two of its productions.

Senior Projects

Seniors are required to complete a senior project before they graduate. Seniors occasionally choose service activities as their senior projects.

• Pursuing his interest in local history, a senior researched original eighteenth century documents from a local church for the Lancaster County Historical Society. He wrote an article based on this research, and published it in summer 2005 edition of the Society's journal, The Historian.
• Elementary school students in a Lancaster city school, under the direction of two LCDS seniors, mounted a performance of two one-act plays, which they presented for their families and fellow students. The direction and management of this play served as the senior projects for both students.

Upper School Projects

Service learning projects typical of the Upper School have included:

“Finding Community,” a multi-faceted project undertaken by eleventh grade history classes during the 2004-2005 academic year. The project captured the elusive past of a Lancaster city neighborhood via historical research, oral history interviews with neighborhood residents, deed research, architectural surveys for the Lancaster Area Habitat for Humanity, and more. The project culminated in an exhibit, open to the public, about the neighborhood.

During each academic year, LCDS students go to a city school to tutor elementary-aged children for whom English is their second language.

Seniors collected money and personal health items for relief kits that were distributed to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Upper School students participate in the annual Martin Luther King, Jr “Day of Service ,” held each January to commemorate the works and memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.

LCDS Upper School students and faculty members, along with a faculty member from a Lancaster city school, offered a free week-long summer theatre workshop to about 30 children in grades 1–5. The young children presented “Pandora’s Box” for their parents and other members of the community.

The Upper School student council, in conjunction with the Lancaster City Parks Department, completely refurbished a neglected city park. The Market Street Kids Parks got a make-over of its own: glass was dug out of the ground, gardens were weeded and mulched, flowers were planted, signs and gym equipment were painted, and a security camera was purchased and installed to enhance the Park's security.