With an eye toward learning life skills and bettering the community, freshmen at Hudson High School are embarking on various community service learning projects
in a high school civics class. For the past 12 years, ninth-grade students have participated in community service projects, such as helping out at a nursing home or raising money for charity, to help the students become part of the community, said social sciences teacher Todd Wallingford. “Our take on teaching civics is to give the students hands-on experience on what it means to be a good citizen,” Wallingford said. After a recent trip to Honduras with her sister, who volunteers at an orphanage in the Third World country, Jackie Brown decided she wanted to raise money to purchase books and create a pen pal system between students in Hudson and children at the orphanage. “There’s a lot of poverty down there,” Brown said. “This helps them and shows them that people care about them.” When Emily Cabral toured Sherry’s House – a home in Worcester where children from across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico who are suffering from cancer come to receive support, treatment and encouragement – she envisioned lending a hand to the children in need. When she first toured the house, Cabral said she met a young boy being treated for leukemia.
“It was shocking to see,” she said. “He looked just like any other kid. Some people I know have cancer, so I thought it would be nice to help.”