STUDENT LIFE    Global Outreach/ Service Opportunities

Crescent Volunteer and Service Opportunities

"You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
- Kahil Gibran, The Prophet

“All that is given is not lost.”

Crescent believes that volunteering outside of the School is an important component of a full and balanced education. It is an integral part of Crescent's mission of preparing our students to lead a full and meaningful life and to be contributing members of society. While the School does assist students in finding opportunities for volunteer work, it needs to be stressed that ultimately it is the responsibility of each student to find and complete his community service requirement.

A summary of the process:

• the School makes periodic suggestions and directs requests for volunteers to the students; the students secure their own volunteer service placements
• the students record their hours and secure some sort of written documentation (a letter, a certificate) of the work they have completed
• the documentation is submitted as soon as possible to Mr. Pestonji, who adds it to the each student's total
• each student's total recorded number of volunteer hours appears on each report throughout the year

Each Crescent student is expected to complete during his time in the Upper School a minimum of 40 hours of documented volunteer work before they graduate. This is to reduce slightly for students who join Crescent after grade 10.

Each year every new student in the Upper School is given a copy of the School’s Volunteer Service Handbook. It gives instructions on how to get ready for volunteer service, what the School expects of each student and what a typical agency expects of any volunteer. There is also a Volunteer Handbook where the student can keep a record of his work and a sample letter the students can use to document his completed volunteer hours.

Any work for a not-for-profit organization is accepatable as volunteer work. It might also be work a student “creates” on his own, such as planting trees or cleaning up a public area. However, formal documentation must be provided that attests to the boy’s service hours in a particular activity.