Service Week 2019

Before spring break, students fulfilled an important rite of passage and requirement in Shorecrest’s Upper School - Service Week. Now in its tenth year, Service Week began as a student-led initiative and continues its proud tradition of including student voice and choice. Over 300 students in the Upper School committed to serving at either the local or national level, providing over 4,000 hours of community service by the time the week was completed.

Service Week involved working with 17 community partners, ensuring our students explored different areas of service while learning. Some highlights included a service and learning experience with Re-Member, an organization working in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; a team of senior boys led by our Academic Dean Erich Schneider, and Headmaster Mike Murphy to Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains; a team working with Habitat for Humanity in Pinellas County to build affordable housing for deserving families; and a mural painting group at CASA, an organization working with families that have survived domestic abuse. All of these projects demonstrate Shorecrest’s commitment to developing social responsibility in our students through service while learning.

Don Paige, Head of Upper School, reported that his group picked up 1,070 lbs of trash off of Gandy Beach in just the first day of Service Week. The Urban Gardening students harvested 120 lbs of collard greens on their first day as well as planted watermelon, squash, and flowers; sifted compost; installed and painted a fence; and learned about local urban gardening programs and their plants.

Back on campus, the mural painting group (Karlei Kongsiri '19, Brendan Smith '19, Taylor Waldmann '19, Maria Halliwell '19, Ashlee Burkett '19, Bella Rawson '19, Danielle Hernandez '19, Trinity White '19, Felina Dilley '19, Heidi Hicks '21 and Alisa Flannery '21) added a large mural of mountains for the new climbing wall located on the back of the Mike Murphy Experiential School. The mountain range is based on the Latok peaks in Pakistan. Heidi even added pikas, small mammals related to rabbits that live in high mountain regions. The students also oriented the shadows on the mountains to make it look like the light was coming from the right to correspond with the eastern sunrise. You can see the mural from Pratt Blvd.

#Shorecrestserves