Upper School Service Day

The first Upper School Service Day of the year took place on Wednesday, September 15th, scattering Upper Schoolers all across the Greenville community to serve with twenty-six different organizations. A core tenet of the CCES student experience, service learning opportunities such as this happen throughout the school year, and the annual Upper School Service Day enables students from all different grades to work together to serve the community. 

The service projects varied from providing childcare to women at Serenity Place, a residential treatment facility for women and their families, to playing games with the residents at Waterstone, an assisted living facility. A vast majority of the students enjoyed the beautiful outdoors by cleaning up litter and gardening across the city. One partnering organization, the Conestee Nature Preserve, hosted the Student Council as they traversed a span of the thirteen mile trail, cleaning up trash and removing invasive plant species. One of the many “treasures” of the day included a homemade boat hoisted out of the water by Woods Windham ‘23, Benji Horton ‘23, and James Delo ‘23. 

Meanwhile at United Ministries, students learned about the powerful mission of the organization to “serve and empower those on the transformative journey to self-sufficiency.” United Ministries provides a wide range of services to the Greenville community, and students joined forces that day to put together hygiene kits and notes of encouragement. Reflecting upon the experience, Paul Stroebel ‘25 said, “it opened my eyes and gave me a new perspective on privilege and just how fortunate we are as students to go to CCES.” He really enjoyed the opportunity to serve and looks forward to doing so again in the future.