Community service is more than a graduation requirement at Noble and Greenough—it’s a way of life. Students can fulfill their 80-hour service-learning requirement through taking part in an Afternoon Program activity, going on service-learning trips or doing independent projects—but many log far more than 80 hours each year. When people are in need, whether in Dedham or on the other side of the world, Nobles students notice and respond.
Working with long-term service partners on campus, in Dedham and in the greater Boston area, Nobles students have been teaching assistants at Achieve, an academic enrichment program for low-income middle school students hosted on campus during the summer and on weekends during the school year. They have tutored at Riverdale, Oakdale and Avery Schools in Dedham, and collected and sorted thousands of pounds of cans and boxes for the Dedham Food Pantry. In Boston, they have tutored students at Roxbury Prep Charter School and Epiphany School. Farther afield, Nobles community members have pitched in to help reconstruct hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Outside the United States, groups from Nobles have cared for babies through Romanian Children’s Relief, worked with a partner school in South Africa, and done building projects in India, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Through community service, Nobles:
- Encourages a lifetime commitment to community involvement
- Nurtures a sense of social responsibility and global citizenship
- Cultivates awareness and understanding of human circumstances and differences that extend beyond the student’s typical classroom or home experience
- Helps students develop self-esteem and self-reliance through substantive responsibility and committed work ethic
- Elicits meaningful responses to the needs and experiences of others
Each year on Martin Luther King Day, Nobles students, parents, faculty and graduates mobilize for a day of service, serving at shelters, schools, hospitals and other sites in Greater Boston. Throughout the year, there are similar community-wide service events such as the Dedham Stamp Out Hunger Drive, and a basketball event with the Cotting School, a school for disabled children. The Multicultural Students Association organizes a Turkey Drive and takes part in Walk for Hunger and it’s tradition for Nobles’ many athletic teams to find myriad ways to reach out to people in need.
Serving others, whether in our back yard or on the other side of the world, is part of our mission as a school.