Boys Volunteer at Terence Cardinal Cooke

On several Tuesdays each month during the year, two groups of sixth grade volunteers and I walk 12 blocks north to spend the late afternoon/early evening visiting residents of the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.

The boys are members of the all-volunteer "Headmaster's Community Club." They elect to spend their free time after the school day ends interacting with elderly residents, many of whom are facing a variety of challenges.

The boys engage in one-on-one conversation with residents and participate in craft projects, games, and other holiday themed celebrations.

This year 33 boys have volunteered, so many, they make their visits in two separate groups. Parent volunteers often join us as well.

I am always deeply impressed by the number of boys who willingly give of their free time and the enthusiastic spirit they bring to their visits.

It is heartwarming to watch the boys grow emotionally as they deepen their connections to the residents with each successive visit.

These visits are important to me; they reinforce the motto of our mission "that they be good men" and this year's theme: deliberate moral introspection.

To look inward in search of truth and goodness is to recognize that we must act outward in service and good will to others.

Comments

OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium. He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...

Surf's Up for Horizons at Saint David's

Little can top catching a wave to beat the heat on an exceptionally hot summer's day. Yesterday, as the temperatures soared into the nineties, the Horizons at Saint David's Eighth Grade class traveled to Rockaway Beach with their teachers for surf lessons with New York's premiere surf school, Locals Surf School. The boys have been taking swimming lessons through our program since their first summer with us in 2012. At that time, they were were rising first graders, and our inaugural cohort of Horizons students. Yesterday, they were ready to go, and, as these pictures show, they had a blast while learning a new skill. This is the eighth year of Horizons at Saint David's, a six-week multi-faceted academic and cultural summer experience whose mission is to prevent summer slide in elementary school boys from low-income families. We began the program in conjunction with Saint David's 60th anniversary in 2011, as one way that Saint David's as an ins...

Headmaster's Blog

Search This Blog