Jan. 6, 2006

MOORESTOWN FRIENDS SCHEDULES COMMUNITY SERVICE EVENTS TO OBSERVE MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY

MOORESTOWN, NJ – For the sixth consecutive year, Moorestown Friends School students, faculty and parents will perform community service work together to observe the national Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which this year is Mon., Jan. 16. The projects include assembling health kits, making casseroles and desserts, knitting or crocheting afghan squares and preparing birthday bags. New this year will be the assembly of holiday boxes, creation of computer-generated coloring books, and the making wooden toys and stuffed animals.

Volunteers of all ages will gather at 10 a.m. at the school. They will assemble in the Moorestown Friends Meeting House for a Quaker Meeting for Worship in honor of Dr. King, coordinated by student members of the Upper School Martin Luther King Club, before beginning work on the projects in the Dining Hall/Commons and other campus locations.

Lower School students in kindergarten through 4th grade also will present a special assembly, “I Remember Martin,” at 12:45 p.m. Wed., Jan. 18. In 1964, the American Friends Service Committee nominated Dr. King for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received that year.

The Martin Luther King Day projects will be conducted at activity centers on campus. Each activity has student and parent coordinators.

The health kits will consist of donated items such as toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream, soap, comb, hand cream and socks that will be packaged in two-gallon sized zippered plastic bags.

In addition, volunteers will use the school’s kitchen to make two kinds of casseroles that will serve 12 and will be frozen for future use by New Visions Community Center in Camden.

Some families will make the casseroles at home and bring them to school that day in disposable foil pans. Brownies also will be made.

New Visions provides both the health kits and the casseroles and desserts to their clients, the homeless and unemployed in Camden. Some health kits also will go to the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Burlington County.
In addition, volunteers will:

• Assemble birthday bags and holiday boxes that will be distributed through the Devereux Foundation, which supports group homes for mentally challenged residents. The bags will include supplies for a birthday celebration, including cake mix, frosting, candles, paper goods, decorations, favors and small handmade presents. The boxes will include decorations and supplies of projects the Devereux residents can make for themselves as occupational therapy for holidays including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Spring/Easter and Independence Day.
• Collate computer-generated coloring books that will be included in the Devereux birthday bags.
• Knit or crochet squares that will be made into scarves for clients of New Visions or of the Dooley House in Camden.
• Cut pieces for simple wooden toys that will be bagged into kits with instructions provided for use. These toys will go to Devereux Homes and to New Visions.
• Sew soft stuffed toys that will be given to children of families in need.
  

The school will accept donations for all the projects through 1 p.m. Fri., Jan. 13.

This is the sixth year that MFS has scheduled community service activities as part of the King Day observance. Typically, over 200 students, parents, faculty and staff members participate in the event.

In addition, some MFS families elect to spend the day on community service work organized through their own houses of worship and other organizations.

Community service is a longstanding part of the curriculum at MFS. It has been an MFS graduation requirement since 1989 that students perform community service, a requirement that now is 50 hours. Acting upon one’s beliefs is consistent with the Quaker foundation of Moorestown Friends School.

The school’s Strategic Plan emphasizes service learning at every level of instruction, beginning with three-year-olds, who bring in canned goods for holiday meals, through the Upper School, which has an active ongoing program of community service including tutoring students, serving meals to the homeless and providing companionship for senior citizens. In the service learning program, students not only do volunteer work, but also are taught the root causes of the problem they are addressing and reflect on possible societal solutions.

Students perform the projects with assistance from the faculty, including Chester Reagan Chair of Quaker Studies Priscilla Taylor-Williams; Judy van Tijn, Upper School Community Service Coordinator; Lower and Middle School Quaker Education Coordinator Lynne Brick and Lower/Middle School Community Service Coordinator Rob Buscaglia.