With the first semester winding down, students in the Seminar 300 classes have been really getting into their community service. SEM 300, a class usually taken in your junior, but sometimes senior, year requires a certain amount of community service. First you have choices to pick from. Then you pick three of those choices and you are given what is open.
The majority consensus has been that the community service is a great opportunity and the class is enjoyable. Senior Luke Stevenson had SEM 300 last semester. Stevenson did his community service at an elementary school in Upper Darby. He worked with first and second grade students that had been having trouble with math. “I loved it,” Stevenson said. “It was one of the best parts of last year for me. It was so much fun, and also rewarding because I knew I helped kids do better in school.”
Kris Pittman also did service at an elementary school, but his was in Norristown working as a teacher’s assistant. “I helped kids with their work,” Pittman said. “Mainly their class work, but we worked a lot on their weaknesses too. It was a great experience and I would definitely do it again.”
Kim Ciferni, junior, did her community service at Old Saint Joe’s doing a care walk. “It was surprising because these people were begging for food. They were standing in the rain and freezing cold waiting for us to give them food. It was rewarding to know that we were giving food to people that really needed it.”
Senior, Scott Giblin, had a slightly different point of view. While he liked the course and felt good about doing community service, he found room for some improvement. Giblin, who did his community service at Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini Home, said, “Well Rita Horning and Heather Tu went to the same place and they got to actually communicate with the nuns. We were told we would help them out also, but all we did was rake leaves the whole time, but we made the best of it.” Giblin added, “I liked the course, but I think it would have been better if we did something more meaningful to us.”
