Through service leadership, Hackley continues to support the Westchester community through a holiday drive in partnership with Neighbors Link.
“As of 2023, roughly 11.1% of children in Westchester live in poverty. Roughly 8% of Westchester residents, around 79,000 individuals, rely on SNAP benefits for food.” According to Westchester Magazine. With government funding cuts on these SNAP benefits, lower-income families find themselves sacrificing holiday gifts to their children in order to pay for nutritious meals.
In light of these statistics, Hackley’s Service Leadership for Social Impact ran a toy drive from late November until December 5th. They also organized and ran coat drives and literacy programs for Kindergartners through 914cares to help aid struggling families who are further disadvantaged by the recent cuts in funding.
With the recent coat drive in particular, Hackley stepped in to help, collecting so many coats that the initial place, ART’S Kitchen in White Plains, couldn’t hold them.
“We brought coats for kids and adults to the Carver Center in Port Chester, 914cares’ in Armonk, and Neighbors Link in Ossining as well,” said Emily DeMarchena, Director of Community Engagement & Service Learning. “We were able to spread the donations in an expansive way, so the community impact was pretty tremendous this year.”
As for the toy drive, sophomore homerooms were asked to bring in toys. The homeroom with the greatest number of toys donated wins the prize of a Bagel Emporium.
Through this friendly competition, homerooms were able to contribute to the Westchester community by donating new, unwrapped toys to Neighbors Link. At the Mercado de Fiestas, immigrant families are provided with options for their children.
Neighbors Link Club leaders at Hackley, Lila Salemi, Evelynn Beaton, and Owen Spencer, serve as the connection between the campus and the facilities in Ossining, Mount Kisco, and Yonkers, where immigrants are aided in integrating into their respective communities.
As the student body engages in events that will have a tremendous impact on countless struggling families in Westchester County, students in the Service Leadership for Service Impact class encourage the student body to view service projects, such as the holiday toy drive, as an opportunity for service to themselves as well.
Photo courtesy Ms. Swan
“If you have the opportunity, make your service more of a transformative experience, rather than transactional, because service work is not just for the people you are helping, but it’s also for yourself, as it is a way to not only just connect with others, but learn how to become a better human,” sophomore Sarah Sichel-Outcalt said.
With major holidays just around the corner, the idea of community service is more prevalent, as seen by the toy drive for the Neighbors Link. With heating costs during the winter months, families can experience energy poverty, further limiting the money available for necessities, making it hard for the gift-giving aspects of these holidays.
A junior pursuing independent research in service leadership Owen Spencer said that, “Holiday service is always based on bringing joy, such as bringing toys to other people, and I think that encapsulates the holiday spirit of this time of year, but I think it’s honestly more important that people continue to show up for those in need throughout the year, and that the efforts don’t die off after December 25th.”
With this in mind, the hope is that the student body is moved to engage in services such as the toy drive and working with programs such as 914cares and breakfast run, to learn how transformative and rewarding these acts of selflessness are.
“I think that around the holiday times, there’s this sort of energy around family and around community and around connection. I think that this is present in people’s minds so that giving to communities is an organic outcome of that,” Ms. DeMarchena said.
As a school, we find mantras and quotes about kindness and the spreading of joy within our community carved throughout the core parts of our campus.
If we can apply the energy sophomore homerooms are continuing to bring to help uplift our community with the coat drive and upcoming toy drive throughout the entire year, we not only establish ourselves as the compassionate school within the community, but within our own halls, we are tied more closely together when we collectively support our community and ourselves.
Pointing to a poster in her classroom reading “United we help one another, Ms. DeMarchena said, “That’s my North Star. If there’s anything a student wants to do, or the community council wants to do, or the institution wants to do, if it doesn’t fit into that, then we need to revisit the why. When we say “United, we help one another,” we actually live that, and not just in thought but in action.”
