By Siddarth Tumu ’18, Staff Writer

Newark Academy students and faculty are constantly looking for ways to incorporate their passions and interests into their community service, an integral part of Newark Academy. Since its reorganization three years ago, the Community Service Council has been trying to do the same: helping students make the connection between service and their interests. Ms. Fischer, the faculty leader of the Community Service Council, explained that since its revamping, the council has become more student-led and relies more on student input, allowing for student interests to be increasingly combined with service.

Inspiring students to do community service as a passion rather than a requirement is one of the Community Service Council’s main

objectives. Ms. Fischer believes it is important to emphasize that community service can be used to gain skills, explore, and discover. In addition, Ms. Fischer thinks that highlighting service done outside of school will inspire students to seek opportunities within the school and extend that to service beyond Newark Academy. To this end, the Community Service Council has been connecting different groups or teams with their passions so that service can be done as a group rather than as an individual. The Community Service Council is also partnering with global speakers to find ways to focus on global issues locally, learning about international issues and finding ways for students to give back.

Ms. Fischer says that once hours are completed, it is important to take the time to reflect through the written reflection component of reporting hours. Reflection will help students understand what types of service they connect with most, allowing them to realize their passions and link the two together. Currently, community service is measured through the hour system. Ms. Fischer thinks that sometime in the future, it will be possible to have a community service system where hours logged will not be the sole criteria, but rather, the impact made by doing service will be measured. This would encourage students to do service to make a difference, rather than to meet a requirement. However, Ms. Fischer doesn’t see this change happening anytime in the near future.

As a mainly student-led council, students have a major influence on the way service is integrated into the school community. The council is always looking for ways to connect students with their passion for service, a key part of the community service council’s mission, according to ninth grade representative Brahm Wieseneck ’18. Brahm thinks that students do service not only for completing the requirement, but also because they care about the community. To inspire those who might be apprehensive about service or do not have a specific passion, Brahm advises them to seek service opportunities with their friends: “It makes it much more enjoyable and gets you into the mindset of giving back.” Eleventh grade representative Bryan Wilensky ’16 echoes this sentiment. When he first came to Newark Academy in ninth grade, he found that students would often complete their service requirement with sub-par effort, “which neither helped those they were serving nor gave themselves a feeling of accomplishment.” In response to this, the Community Service Council decided to make connecting people to their passions through service their ‘mission statement’. Bryan hopes that eventually we will be able to replace the hour requirement with another method of measuring service, so that students can connect their interests to service while making a difference and aiding the community, rather than serving because it is mandated.

Though many members of the Community Service Council are keen to shift the focus from mandated hours to putting passion into service, it will take a while for this goal to be reached. Progress made in the past couple of years attests to the fact that people are passionate about service. But encouraging this sentiment among students is an ongoing process, which will undoubtedly be reached with the combined efforts of the Community Service Council and the entire student body.