Walk down the halls of either of our campuses in the coming weeks and you’ll notice large bins, beginning to be filled with canned goods and other non-perishable food items. We are once again collecting these items to donate to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, a drive we’ve organized at ANCS for many years now. It’s but one example of the ways ANCS students and our whole school family take care of one another and of the broader community.
Service to the community starts right here at school. In all classrooms, students take turns taking responsibility for specific classroom jobs, like organizing materials to leading students in breathing to start each class. In the cafeteria, students take the lead on sweeping the floor, cleaning off table tops, and getting supplies ready for recess. And there are larger efforts—like Make a Difference Day that happens twice each year at the elementary campus—where students and teachers alike roll up their sleeves to insure the common spaces we use all the time—the hallways, outdoor spaces—are spruced up.
Our students, teachers, and staff also work to offer their time, skills, and compassion to the community beyond the walls of ANCS. For example, all of the middle campus students took part in service projects all around the city on the day before Thanksgiving break (you can see photos and a description of what students did here). And last year’s 5th grade class designed and installed a “little free pantry” along the sidewalk of the elementary campus to provide free food to neighbors who may not have consistent or ready access to meals.
At the middle school campus, all of our students will eventually complete a “community project” as a part of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (ANCS is currently an IB MYP candidate school in the process of IB authorization). This project pushes students to take their learning and apply it in a way that benefits the larger community through some type of “service in action”.
In ways both large and small, we strive to help our students develop a sense of commitment and obligation to their classmates, their school, their neighbors, and to fellow humans they may never meet, not just during the holidays, but all year long.