by Kate Larsen
Staff Reporter
The Deerfield Scroll
February 23, 2000

In sunshine or in rain the Deer-field Academy Community Service Learning participants are out on the town, "opening doors through service" as their maxim goes. The Community Service Learning (CSL) program has gone above and beyond the call of duty, in its myriad community service projects.

The student body has increasingly participated in and embraced them into their daily lives as another part of the daily vicissitudes of Deerfield life. This year there have been dozens of requests for additional weekend projects from students who are involved in sports or other co-curriculars but still want to partake in the service program at DA.

Maggie Sweeney, coordinator of CSL has been busy as ever arranging community meals for community conscious athletic teams, clubs, and dorm hallways. "The co-curricular program is as full as it's ever been," she said. "There are fifty kids involved. I have had to increase opportunities like community meals and I try to find other ways for kids to get involved because the program is pretty much at its capacity."

There is even a summer program called the Atlanta Summer Internship which is being organized for any students who wish to take their community service experience beyond the school year and participate in a hands-on program.

CSL's after school projects include working with the elderly, helping out in various shelters and social service agencies, and working with children, whether it's teaching science or Spanish, helping with homework, daycare, or playing games with kids.

There are also health-related community service programs, which is a category filled with many new projects. Deerfield students work at Franklin Medical Center in the Nursing Department, Food Services Department, and Community Health Information Center. These are just a handful of the dozens of varied projects there are to choose from.

"I've been really pleased over the last year that the kids signing up for CSL projects have become a more heterogeneous group," Ms. Sweeney said. "There doesn't seem to be the CSL type anymore." She is thrilled that CSL is growing at such a rapid rate and is very thankful to all those who help out, particularly people like Ethan Howe '01 who has launched a Community Service site on Juno [Deerfield's Intranet], and Olivia "from Peru" Ontaneda '03 about whom Maggie Sweeney raved saying, "She is the most dedicated volunteer this school has ever seen." Ontaneda has participated in almost every weekend service project, and is the reason and driving force behind many of the school's new projects. Ontaneda "loves to do the walks [crop walks and leukemia walks]" and would love to see more people involved in the weekend projects.

Ontaneda is the reason behind the recent Youth Service Opportunity Project (YSOP) in which a group of sixteen students from four different schools that went to New York City over the long winter weekend where they served meals in soup kitchens, went to homeless shelters, and had discussions about hunger and homelessness.

"It was a really wonderful and eye-opening experience," said Ms. Sweeney of her adventure in New York.

The group slept in a church the first night and then went to a youth hostel off Broadway where they spent the rest of the weekend. They were up at 7:30 and worked hard until they went to bed. Ontaneda spoke of the project as "one of the most amazing experiences in my life," saying it "made me realize how lucky I am, and how much courage some of these people [the elderly and homeless they worked with] had." Kendra Mahoney '01, who also went to New York with Olivia and others, said, "It was a great experience being in the YSOP program. Being there and helping all the people I met really helped to break the stereotypes I had previously possessed about homeless people."

The Community Service Program at Deerfield has ventured down many new paths in the last few years. CSL seems to be storming through Deerfield in a frenzy; it has even integrated itself into the academic world. Ms. Invernizzi's Spanish IV class has been teaching Spanish classes at Deerfield Elementary as part of their academic curriculum. Perhaps this CSL fever says something about our maturing community which has taken on the very noble duty of charity work, growing to love it more each day.