Days of Service
Service
St. Louis University High School's Service Program offers students the opportunity to cultivate their development as "Men for and with Others." This vital program is complemented by SLUH's unique city location, and allows students to provide assistance at more than 80 project sites in the metropolitan area. At St. Louis University High service is not the responsibility of only a few, but is the vocation of all Christians. Our Mission Statement proclaims: "As a Jesuit school dedicated to developing our gifts for the generous service of others, we challenge this group of young men and ourselves to cultivate life-affirming virtues, lively imaginations, critical minds, and compassionate hearts."
Goals:
- Interact: Work with, learn from, and serve people different from us.
- Cultivate: Develop a sense of personal responsibility for others. We are all blessed with the capacity to be generous. We must develop and realize these God-given gifts.
- Realize: Faith is not static nor is it about our personal relationships with God alone. Ignatian ideals require that LOVE be demonstrated in deeds more than in words.
- Share: SLUH students will share in the mission to bring about a just and equitable society in collaboration with social agencies that share Christ's vision.
Voluntary Community Service Program:
The Community Service Program is a voluntary program offering students in all four grade levels an opportunity to place themselves at the service of others. Students volunteer at selected sites throughout the school year as their schedules allow. Many programs offer a faculty chaperone for those students who are unable to drive. The programs are organized by populations served and type of service. Categories include: pre-school programs, tutor/mentor programs (elementary/middle school-aged populations), feeding/sheltering programs, senior programs, and sports programs for those with special needs. Throughout the school year some programs are added and some end, most often by program design. Students may register and log hours for CSP at www2.sluh.org/csp
Freshman Service Program
The Freshmen Service Program is an opportunity that the entire Freshman class engages in throughout the school year. Each freshman is required to participate in one service afternoon each semester. The students are placed in groups of six with a faculty moderator. One semester the student will go to a Senior Living Community to spend time visiting and playing games with the elderly, and the other semester the student will cook a meal at SLUH and serve it to the homeless at a Feeding Shelter. Students will then reflect on their experiences with their group and in theology classes. Freshmen are assigned service dates before the school year begins. These afternoons take priority over other after school activities, such as sports practices or rehearsals. Should there be a bigger conflict with a date, such as participation in a SLUH game or performance, there is an appeal process to be reassigned to another date.
Sophomore Service Program
The Sophomore Service Program builds on the experience of the Freshman Service Program by asking the students for a higher level of application, analysis, and synthesis of their service experience. This program is run through the theology curriculum and comes in four parts: active service, a parable project, a reflection paper and an oral presentation. Sophomores are asked to complete at least eight hours of service during the first semester of his sophomore year at one of 70 approved sites. The student is responsible for contacting the agency to set up a time to serve. Each student will be asked to do a creative parable project based on one of 34 parables in the New Testament and then connect his service experience with the themes studied in the New Testament. The Sophomore Service Program concludes with an oral presentation to the theology class.
Senior Service Project
The Senior Service Project is a community service program through which SLUH seniors put their talents at the service of the metropolitan community, while at the same time learning and growing through their labors. Project selection and preparation begins early in the first semester. During the month of January the Seniors work at their agency full time in lieu of class time. The successful Senior Project utilizes the talents, which lie within the student and awaken in the students the realization that, for the Christian, service to others is a responsibility and a privilege. The project increases student understanding of social structures which oppress others and methods of altering or abolishing them. Working with the marginalized kindles understanding, hope, compassion, and faith in the students while abolishing the ignorance and fear that separates students from those who are different in some way.
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Did You Know?
SLUH’s original 1924 main campus building is in the shape of the letter “I" for Ignatius.