One in four families in Westchester live in poverty. That means that in all likelihood, students at Hackley are actively experiencing poverty. Suburbs are one of the hardest places to experience poverty because there is so little access to public transportation, food banks, and affordable housing. Most of the funding that is directed at combating poverty also funnels into cities or rural communities, meaning that it can be very difficult for people experiencing poverty in suburbs to receive support.

This can be a bit hard to believe, seeing as Westchester county is one of the wealthiest counties in the country, with a median annual household income of about $35,000 over the national average but also an incredibly high cost of living. Poverty in Westchester is often invisible unless you are looking for it.

These devastating conditions are part of what inspired Emily Washington, Service-Learning Coordinator, and Spanish teacher, to offer a new course called “Service Leadership for Social Engagement.” According to the course description, the class is focused on providing “students with the opportunity to explore the origins and complexities of contemporary social issues in Westchester County in order to engage in effective and impactful service to the community.”

“I hope students take away a greater sense of social issues outside of the Hackley context, as well as a sense of ownership in participating and collaborating with people to address these problems,” said Mrs. Washington.

In previous years, a class called “Civic Engagement for Advanced Spanish Speakers” was available, but given the widespread interest in engaging in service projects with the community, Mrs. Washington felt that opening the class up to English speakers would increase the scope of organizations students could work with, and issues they could address.

“Pushing into places where we can use English to serve the community makes a lot more sense because we can have a more widespread impact,” said Mrs. Washington.

Both classes have a large focus on service learning, which is a teaching method that encourages research-based engagement with a local community partner organization to enact social change. This type of learning has existed for a while in Mrs. Washington’s Post-AP Spanish class and is now being incorporated into multiple levels of Spanish, such as AP Spanish and Spanish 3.

The Service Leadership class collaborated with non-profit 914Cares to combat poverty in Westchester as their first local project. 914Cares is a Westchester-based organization that works together with over 90 local community partners to distribute clothing, baby products, period products, books and hygiene products to those who need it most. Shockingly, 914Cares runs the only hygiene bank in the country.

CEO of 914Cares, Jessica Reinmann, gave a presentation to the students in the Service Leadership class about the realities of poverty in Westchester. As a Hackley parent, Mrs. Reinmann has worked with many Hackley students in the past.

“Seeing the statistics [about poverty in Westchester] really put things in perspective and made it clear to me that we have to do something and try to help as much as we can as a community,” said senior Vanessa Restrepo, an alum of Mrs. Washington’s Civic Engagement for Spanish speakers and current student of the Service Leadership class.

Wil Lobko, an English teacher, has also started incorporating service-learning into the curriculum of the 12th grade English classes he teaches. The seniors in his classes will collaborate with the students in the Service Leadership class to help educate the student body about period poverty.

“Regardless of whether the service-learning exists in a Spanish context or an English context, one thing that unites them is the needs of the organization being sacrosanct and leading everything that we do,” said Mrs. Washington.

In the two weeks before winter break, the Service Leadership class hosted a donate-to-play-ping-pong tournament with a suggested donation of $5, a bake sale, and ran a hygiene and period product drive. Product donations were brought to either the Upper School or Middle School offices. By the end of the two weeks, the campaign raised close to $1,500.

The class used the collected money to buy additional period products to donate. On February 11th, the students of the service leadership class invited Upper School students and faculty to help pack period kits from the collected supplies for 914Cares. The group set up an assembly line in the Lindsay Room and quickly filled all bags.