**by Sarah Barr Engel**

Last month, over 800 Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School students volunteered for 25 different charities and non-profits. They helped prepare 16,000 meals to send to Africa, renovated a DC homeless shelter and removed invasive plants from Anacostia wetlands.

Most students at Whitman agree giving back to the community is important. In order to give students more opportunities to help the local community, Whitman should follow JDS’s lead and introduce a school-wide social action day so students can actively learn about problems in the community and work together to solve them.

MCPS policy prohibits shutting down classes for an entire day, but an SGA, parent or teacher-led volunteering day on the weekend could work, SGA president-elect Jacob Rosenblum said. Like bRAVE, this event would take a lot of effort and planning, but it would be well worth it to give back to the community.

On the volunteering day, students would sign up for a project that interests them and work in groups. For example, if a student were to sign up to learn about the environment, he could go to plant trees at an eroding creek or clean up trash in a field with his classmates.

A community service day would allow students to focus on larger projects with big impacts. Though individual volunteers can make small changes, groups could tackle larger projects like building a sustainable garden, planting native trees or preparing meals for the homeless. Even though some students already work in groups, the community service day would allow more students to participate in large group projects. By working in groups, the 1,928 students at Whitman could have a significant impact on the community.

Creating a community service day would help excite students about helping the community. Students would be more likely to work on new projects if their peers are there, and would enjoy the experience more. Group projects teach students important teamwork and cooperation skills.

Local organizations always need able-bodied volunteers and students want to give back to the community. A school-wide social action day would be mutually beneficial and create a tangible difference in the community.