This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

Friends' Central School's Culture of Generosity

The Wynnewood school fosters a spirit of giving extending beyond the holiday season.

The Eurozone crisis, it's been said by some of its cannier followers, boils down to a problem not of finance, but of culture, which is roughly this: Do Greece and Germany—one profligate, Mediterranean and broke, the other disciplined, Western European, and solvent—share enough common ground to recognize their fates as intertwined and cooperate? To put it another way, can 17 very different countries effectively operate as one?

America, fractious and multicultural as it is, faces a less severe, but broadly similar problem: How can you get the haves to help out a growing group of have-nots who look, speak, and live increasingly unlike they do?

More importantly, how do you get them to want to?

Find out what's happening in Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In Wynnewood, there's a 1,000-student college-preparatory school that seems to have found an answer.

"What we do is expose them to inequities and let them go. You can't force their hand."—Deb Maraziti

senior Claudia Rizzo, an Ardmore resident, raised $1,000 this fall for the 25th Annual AIDS Walk Philly, the Oct. 16 fundraiser for HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention in the Delaware Valley.

Find out what's happening in Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Over the course of his high school career, Claudia's classmate Jeff Horowitz (of Wynnewood) has raised $10,000 for MANNA, a worldwide organization that provides nutritional support for poor children in 38 countries.

Neither of them think this is extraordinary.

"I think AIDS is an important cause," says Claudia, matter-of-factly. "So I just went up to people and asked if they were interested. I took a head count at a soccer practice."

Jeff just shrugs that his parents have always been philanthropic and he must have acquired the habit from them.

Helping people is, to them, ordinary, obvious. When someone needs help, it's just what you do.

Taking off the blinders

"Well, as a Quaker school we foster that ethos," said Friends' Central service coordinator Deb Maraziti, taking a stab at explaining why her students spent their Novembers, to cite a few of many examples, volunteering at a therapeutic horseback riding program in Malvern for children with disabilities, preparing lunches for homeless people in Center City, working at Philabundance Food Bank, and tending to strays at Operation Ava animal shelter.

"We try to teach social justice in the classroom and encourage our students to look around them and really see what's happening. To not just have blinders on."

"Service," she added, "is one of the key Quaker testimonies."

Many schools are Quaker, though. And despite their praiseworthy emphasis on service (Quaker schools teach that there is "that of God" in both their students and those they serve—talk about common ground), few if any have as robust a volunteerism record as the City Avenue institution.

So what else is there?

To sketch out the underpinnings of their altruism, Maraziti says that not long ago, Friends' Central got involved with "Operation Santa"—a program where volunteers take one of the many letters to Santa Claus the postal service receives each winter and buy a present for its author. One year, rather than send their gifts in the mail, Maraziti drove her students around to deliver them in person.

"We were dropping these presents off in really rough neighborhoods," she remembered. "And our students who don't get out that often to neighborhoods that are really, really suffering got to see first-hand what it's like to live in a really downtrodden place and to see what an uplifting thing it can be to lend them a helping hand."

Maraziti paused. "What we do," she said, "is expose them to inequities and let them go. You can't force their hand. You have to let them see what's out there, and let them figure out what to do about it. That's, I think, what we do best."

It's working. Last Spring a group of them organized an athletic equipment drive for students at Martha Washington, a West Philadelphia K-8. Two years ago a few noticed the school cafeteria was discarding large amounts of food every Friday, so they made arrangements to give it to the hungry. This Fall, students held a smoothie sale and used the proceeds to buy cleaning supplies for UMCOR's disaster response team.

The seeds grew.

Beyond Friends

Next fall, Claudio Rizzo hopes to go to Trinity College, where's she's applied for "early decision." She isn't sure what major she'll choose, or even if she'll get in, but she is clear in at least one area about what her future holds.

"Will I be volunteering? Oh yeah. Of course," she said.

Of course.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?