Celebrating Service Day Spans Three Campuses and Helps Multiple Organizations

ESJ students participated in Celebrating Service Day yesterday, an annual event that focuses on caring for others and providing assistance to the Jacksonville community. Students worked on and off campus for multiple groups, including Hunger Fight, Hope’s Closet, Hope Haven, St. Johns Riverkeeper, Habijax, and Five Star Veterans Center. They also heard from guest speakers from St. Mary’s Food Pantry and Haiti Health Promise, learned about housing issues in Jacksonville, learned how to use Helper Helper and set up a service hours plan. Advisories also completed service projects.

Dr. John Lovejoy, retired orthopedic surgeon and father of two ESJ alum (John ’87 Ellen ’88), spoke with 10th and 11th graders about his lifelong work serving at a hospital in Haiti.  He and his son served together as surgeons in Haiti when the 2010 earthquake devastated the area - saving many lives.  Dr. Lovejoy continues to volunteer in Haiti and in our own community here in Jacksonville.

On the Beaches Campus students visited with K-9 for Warriors community members and their dogs, made cards and wrote letters to those in the program, and assembled care packages. On the St. Mark's Campus students served those who serve in the military by hearing speakers from NAS and Mayport Jacksonville, making cards and writing letters to those in service, creating a banner to be displayed at NAS, and participating in patriotic-theme enrichment classes.

"We told students that this day isn't as much a break from their education as much as it is an education--and a reminder to use the education we receive to serve others. Celebrating Service Day is about learning how to see those we often overlook or pretend not to see," said Rev. Andy Farmer, Associate Chaplain.

Episcopal's Founders believed ESJ students should be leaders and "doers of good." On Celebrating Service Day students, faculty, and staff helped to fulfill this vision and the school's mission.

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