The Bush School Serves Greater Seattle in “Day of Service”

During the day, Lower School students stayed at school to beautify campus, assist in a book drive, and make crafts for hospice patients, among other activities. All Fifth Grade through Twelfth students traveled off campus to support over twenty-five longtime community partners throughout the city, including Teen Feed, Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, The Ronald McDonald House, Little Free Pantry, and Aegis Living, among others. The day concluded with the whole student body reconvening on campus for cross-divisional Family Groups in the afternoon to debrief on their experiences. 

Stella W. ’24 volunteered at Treehouse, an organization that supports the needs of foster youth. 

“One of the things that was really cool to me was that all of the people working there seemed very passionate about the people they were helping. They’re actively thinking about the people they’re serving and how the services are going to impact them,” Stella said. 

Stella was grateful that Bush put together this day to get out into the community.

“It’s nice to have a different experience at school where we're actually hands-on with people and the community. I would definitely hope we can continue doing things like this in future,” Stella said.

The day would not have been possible without the herculean efforts of organizers Julie Barber, Lower School Academic Dean, Sara Fischer, Upper School Dean, and Rachel Ladd, Program Manager, along with a whole host of other faculty and staff.

“We’re so grateful for our longtime community partners, students, faculty, staff, Facilities Team, sponsors, parents, and everyone else that pitched in to celebrate service-learning at Bush today. Students learned about, visited, and worked with organizations across Seattle aiming to make our world better. We know the value of this community-based work will stick with our students far beyond a single day. Still, today was a great day to be a Blazer!” said Rachel Ladd, Program Manager.