Although community service hours are not required of Webb students, many students voluntarily choose to participate in one or more of our numerous service activities. These activities are coordinated through two main groups, the Service Council and after-school programs.
The Service Council is a leadership group comprised of twenty to thirty students who plan and implement on- and off-campus service projects for all students. Currently, the Service Council manages projects with Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, Green Club, Project HOPE, Leroy Haynes Foster Home, Sunrise Senior Center, The Red Cross, Global Citizen Corps, and Prison Library Project. Student participation on these projects is very high, and normally four to five service opportunities are available to students each month, primarily on the weekends. In addition, the Service Council plans trips to local fundraising walks and runs, coordinates the school’s annual Blood Drive, and more.
The after-school community service program provides the opportunity for a small group of students to work in the local community five afternoons each week. Students serve four local agencies in Claremont: Prison Library Project, CLASP (Claremont After-School tutoring Program), Leroy Haynes Foster Home, and local animal shelters. The students tutor, help out at the non-profit Thoreau Bookstore, clean, paint, and whatever else our agencies need completed.
Other campus groups, especially the classes (freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors), plan and implement annual service projects. These projects include canned food drives, toy drives, meal distribution for the homeless, packaging food at a local food bank, book drives, and more. Class advisors normally plan these projects based on student input and interest. Each spring, the members of the Service Council and any other interested students spend two weeks over spring break performing service in an international setting. For example, twenty students and two teachers journeyed to Peru’s Sacred Valley where they spent two weeks building a preschool kitchen, working in the fields with local villagers, tutoring students in English, and repainting an elementary school playground. On another trip, fifteen students lived and worked in a small village outside Quito, Ecuador, performing similar service work. This past year, the Service Council spent two memorable weeks in Fiji, completing three projects in Nananu Village.