Christian Service Program
When St. Ignatius of Loyola and his companions designated education an apostolate of the Society of Jesus, their goal was to empower students to "find God in all things." They believed forming students with the ability to discern God's presence in the world would further the Society’s universal mission to "help souls" for "the greater glory of God." Today that ideal of Ignatian education is expressed in the phrase "educating men and women for and with others." Students at Fordham Preparatory School are called to wonder, to reverence and to thank God, and to serve all of God's creation, especially their sisters and brothers in need. The Christian Service Program is responsible for organizing a curriculum, programs, and activities that provide students with opportunities to recognize, appreciate, and live out this vocation.
Overview
Overview of the Four-Year Christian Service Requirement
To achieve the goal of making Christian service an integral part of every student's experience, Fordham Preparatory School has a four-year service requirement:
Freshman Year: Each year freshman mentor groups are asked to design and implement a project of their own, with a focus on charity to local, national, or international agencies. Recent projects have assisted an emergency relief fund at POTS, natural disaster relief efforts, breast cancer and a multi-service center in the South Bronx. Our first-year students also design crafts that are given to elderly residents of local nursing homes. At Christmas, students organize a toy drive for youngsters in Catholic social service programs. In February, they participate in a Valentine's Day card project.
Sophomore Year: In sophomore year, every mentor group is encouraged to select and run a service project that will promote justice, in light of Catholic Social Teaching. Recent projects have included support of refugee relief services, the Prep’s construction of affordable housing in Tennessee through Habitat for Humanity, and a shelter in the Bronx caring for single women and their children (often the victims of domestic violence). In addition, sophomores participate in the Christmas toy drive and the Valentine’s Card project.
Junior Year: Our juniors are primarily responsible for responding to the needs that exist within our school. They are required to give fifteen hours of their own time to a service activity or club, such as tutoring peers who are struggling academically, raising awareness and funds for a medical mission program founded by a Prep alumnus, directing underclass retreats, and hosting visitors to the Prep. Juniors are also able to perform up to eight of those required service hours at an approved outside agency.
Senior Year: In their final year, our students should have the maturity, knowledge, social skills, and judgment to enable them to go out into the world to provide direct service to people in need. Seniors are required to give seventy hours of their own time to Christian service projects as part of their graduation requirements. Seniors can be found comforting persons who are sick and dying in hospitals and hospices. They visit and recreate with the elderly and people who need assistance and companionship. Our seniors feed and provide clothing to persons who are poor at shelters and soup kitchens. They also teach children in academic and CCD programs. All seniors are enrolled in a service course that provides opportunities for reflection, discussion, and instruction on issues of faith and justice. Placements and projects will be evaluated in light of prevailing COVID regulations and with sensitivity to concerns raised by students.
Student Requirements
In order to achieve the goal of making service an integral part of every student’s experience, Fordham Prep has a four-year service requirement for all students.
FRESHMAN YEAR
Freshmen, in their mentor groups, will band together to create and seed a new fund to help people in distress. The pandemic has made us acutely aware that so many of our sisters and brothers live on the brink of catastrophe, lacking the support systems and safety nets that most of us take for granted. Freshmen will be introduced to a number of agencies, including POTS, that provide emergency relief to people who are one setback away from dire straits. They will hear stories about people who could have been spared a devastating turn if short-term assistance had been available. The service efforts of our freshmen to collect funds and materials will represent a “bridge over troubled waters” for our neighbors.
SOPHOMORE YEAR
Sophomores will also serve through their mentor groups. They will gain an understanding of some of the systemic causes of human suffering and begin to appreciate that lasting solutions to many problems will require changes to economic, social, educational, medical, and legal structures. Our second-year students will be inspired to support in remote ways local, regional, national, and international social justice causes that share Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision that “the moral arc of the universe is long, but bends toward justice."
JUNIOR YEAR
Juniors will continue to be the main providers of service needed within the Prep’s walls. We will call upon them to continue to support Prep events that require student presence in accordance with current health guidelines. Juniors will take an active, though remote, role in responding to needs in our neighborhood (Community Board 6) and in their home communities. They will be invited to build on the great work the entire Prep community did this summer in writing letters, creating entertaining videos, and collecting essential items for our agency partners. Their traditional 15-hour requirement will be re-evaluated and adjusted as needed as the year unfolds.
SENIOR YEAR
Seniors will still be required to complete a major capstone service project for graduation. They will be enrolled in a service class that meets once per cycle under the supervision of a faculty/staff member. For as long as direct service at our partner agencies is not an option, we will pivot to remote service and a new curriculum designed to be a “deeper dive” into the call to serve and to live in kinship with others, particularly people who have been marginalized. That revised curriculum will be grounded in the four weeks of the Spiritual Exercises and integrate elements of Ignatian pedagogy and the Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preferences. In lieu of the traditional 70-hour requirement, each senior, in collaboration with his service teacher, will develop and carry out a substantive project of his own design or with a small group of other seniors to help an organization whose mission is aligned with our Catholic identity and values and to bring that cause to the attention of the entire Prep community.
These transitions will not be easy for anyone and will surely involve some missteps. We will strive to be patient, constructive in our feedback, open to change, always trusting that Providence smiles upon the good works of our young men. Thanks in advance for your understanding and please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or suggestions for ways in which we can live out our call to be a community “for and with others.”
Senior Information
WHY MUST I PERFORM SERVICE?
- To meet the living God who identifies with our sisters and brothers in need.
- To respond affirmatively and actively to Jesus Christ's call to find greatness through service.
- To embody the Ignatian ideal to be a "man for and with others."
- To learn about myself and to make a positive difference in the lives of people who struggle.
- To develop a sense of civic responsibility.
- To fulfill a graduation requirement.
HOW MUCH SERVICE MUST I DO?
A minimum of 70 hours. Students who failed to do junior in-school service hours must serve 100 hours. If a service site requires a higher minimum number of hours, you are obliged to meet its requirements. Agencies have the right to expect that you will perform the number of service hours you promise on your contract, so choose that number wisely.
WHAT COUNTS AS SERVICE?
The direct provision of a basic human service to a person or people in significant need without remuneration. Seniors must serve at least 50 hours outside of the Prep, preferably at one site.
DIRECT: You must work at an agency (no private arrangements) with people in significant need — people who are poor, homeless, sick, dying, physically and mentally challenged, immobile, or in need of education, catechism, supervision or companionship.
Non person-to-person service such as clerical work, walk-a-thons, phone-a-thons, and all in-school service may not count for more than 20 hours of the 70-hour requirement. Coaching a sport, like CYO or Little League, can be counted as part of these 20 hours, but not part of the 50 main hours, unless it is with a special needs population.
Most Service Immersion Trips (Habitat for Humanity in Appalachia, Ecuador, etc.) earn 35 out-of-school hours. For those interested in teaching the faith in CCD Programs, the following hours will be credited: teacher with catechist certification = 70 hours; teacher without certification = 50 hours; teacher’s assistant = 35 hours. Students who work with HAP in the summer at the Prep earn up to 35 hours, which includes all non-person-to person hours; therefore, the remaining 35 hours must be served at an approved outside agency.
BASIC: The service must respond to a fundamental human need. The Gospel is our measure, emphasizing feeding and clothing the poor, caring for the sick, visiting the confined, and teaching the faith. Typical project sites include soup kitchens, shelters, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, day care centers, churches, and schools.
WHO ARRANGES MY SERVICE PROJECT?
You choose and arrange your own project from a list of service sites pre-approved by the Service Office. Your parents or guardians must consent to your choice. No credit will be given retroactively or for hours served at a non-approved site.
WHEN MUST I BEGIN MY SERVICE PROJECT?
The deadline for signing a service contract is October 1st of senior year. However, service projects may begin the summer before senior year, if three conditions are met.
- The student must receive permission from the Service Office: No projects will be approved retroactively. A folder with forms and information will be given to the student as soon as the project is approved.
- The student must leave at least 20 hours to be completed between the first day of classes in senior year and April 15th so that some work will be contemporaneous with the service course.
- The student must keep a journal during the summer and submit it the first day of school. No journal, no hours. Reflection is as important as action!
WHAT IF I CANNOT BEGIN MY PROJECT BY OCTOBER 1ST?
You may choose to start your project whenever you want—the earlier the better. HOWEVER, you must have on file an approved service contract by October 1st. If you know that a sport or activity (e.g. dramatics) will consume all your time during a period of the year, plan accordingly.
WHEN MUST THE PROJECT BE COMPLETED?
Service projects must be completed by April 15th of senior year. A detailed request for an extension must be submitted in writing to your service teacher by April 1st.
HOW IMPORTANT IS THE SERVICE COURSE?
Service is at the heart of Fordham Preparatory School’s mission and an integral part of its curriculum. The service course, which meets once per cycle, has the priority of a regular academic class and takes precedence over sports, clubs and other extracurricular activities. Keeping a satisfactory service journal--a student’s written reflections on his experience at his service site and his in-class work--is an essential part of being a contemplative in action.
ALL SERVICE REQUIREMENTS MUST BE FULFILLED IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR A DIPLOMA. NO EXCEPTIONS.
WILL I RECEIVE A GRADE FOR SERVICE ON MY REPORT CARD?
You will be given either a satisfactory or unsatisfactory grade based on meeting deadlines, quality of written work, class participation, journal, hours accumulated and agency evaluations. Unsatisfactory work will trigger a set of sanctions and additional requirements.
WHERE CAN I GET FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE PROGRAM?
In the Service Office (located in the Campus Ministry Center off the Commons) and from the Prep's website.
ADVICE FROM ALUMNI: START EARLY! GO REGULARLY! SERVE WITH A FRIEND AND AN OPEN MIND! CHOOSE A CHALLENGING AND REWARDING PROJECT! BE READY TO ENJOY SOME UNEXPECTED GRACES!
Senior Forms
Summer Immersion Trips
In addition to the four-year service requirement, students can also volunteer to travel to Camden, NJ, the Appalachia Mountain Region of Tennessee, and Quito, Ecuador to live in community and to provide material assistance to residents in need. Our young men do much-needed building and home repairs for people who are not able to do or afford the work. Lasting from a week to ten days, most of these trips take place in the summer.
To learn more about this year's Christian Service Immersion Trips to Camden, Tennessee and Ecuador follow the link below.
Coordinator: Nelson Ritter Trip Information
Social Justice Opportunities
Fordham Prep is intensifying its efforts to educate itself about and bear witness to Catholic social teaching. The Campus Ministry and Service Departments currently sponsor a number of social justice events to increase student awareness of justice issues. These include Hunger Awareness Week, school-wide canned food drives, Ignatian PeaceAction assemblies on environmental justice, immigration reform and Good Friday Peace Walk for Justice.