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Community Service Program

In order to promote an awareness of “others,” Jesuit education stresses community values such as equality of opportunity for all, the principles of distributive and social justice, and the attitude of mind that sees service of others as more self-fulfilling than success or prosperity.

Go Forth and Teach
The Characteristics of Jesuit Education

Inspired by its mission to “prepare young men and women for others,” Cheverus High School requires every student to complete four years of community service as a graduation requirement.  The community service program calls on all students to commit to service in each of their four years at Cheverus High School.

The program is designed as follows:

Community Service Program

Requirement: Five hours of community service and one reflection paper

All five hours served on one staff-supervised day of service at local agencies assigned by the school.  The Freshmen Community Service Day is held in conjunction with the Freshmen Year Retreat.

Requirement: 25 hours of service and one reflection paper

 

Five hours served on one staff-supervised day of service at local agencies assigned by the school.

Twenty hours of service served by each student independently. Each student is responsible for securing a service project or projects (click here to view a list of service sites -- requires Cheverus email login) and completing the required 20 hours by May 1,  2020.

Students are responsible for documenting completed hours on ParentsWeb including the site, supervisor's name, and supervisor's email address.  (Click here for instructions on adding community service hours to ParentsWeb.

Note that service projects are not limited to the sites recommended by the school. For alternative projects, students need to get approval from Mr. Szkarlat or Dr. Moran. Cheverus High School club (i.e. Key Club, Civil Rights, Haitian Solidarity, etc.) and sports service projects may count towards the total hours required.

Reflection papers and service log sheets are the last Friday in April. Download the Sophomore Reflection Questions.

Requirement: 25 hours of service and one reflection paper

 

Twenty-five hours of service served by each student independently. Each student is responsible for securing a service project or projects (click here for a list of service sites -- requires Cheverus email login) and completing the required 25 hours by May 1, 2020.

Students are responsible for documenting completed hours on ParentsWeb including site, supervisor's name, and supervisor's email.  (Click here for instructions for adding community service hours in ParentsWeb.)

Note that service projects are not limited to the sites recommended by the school. For alternative projects, students need to get approval from Mr. Szkarlat or Dr. Moran. Cheverus High School club (i.e. Key Club, Civil Rights, Haitian Solidarity, etc.) and sports service projects may count towards the total hours required.

Reflection papers and service log sheets the last Friday in April. Download the Junior Reflection Questions.

Cheverus Seniors end their classes in late April and spend the next four to five weeks on site at various institutions in the community: schools, day care centers, nursing homes, hospitals, etc. The students work at the site for five to six hours a day (the equivalent of a school day) working with clients for at least half of the time. They must meet with a Cheverus faculty adviser once a week to process their experience, and they write two 500-word reflection papers over the course of the month.

On the last Friday before graduation, the seniors return to Cheverus and several of them speak to the entire school community about their experiences. It is a graduation requirement--of course, it corresponds directly to the mission of Cheverus.

The Arrupe Service Projects -- named for Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, a former Superior General of the Society of Jesus -- have been part of the Cheverus experience since 1972.


Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.
1907-1991

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, was the 28th general (1965-83) of the Society of Jesus. Born Nov. 14, 1907 in the Basque country of Spain, Fr. Arrupe interrupted medical studies at the University of Madrid to join the Jesuits in 1927. He was ordained at St. Mary's Seminary in Kansas in 1936, and in 1938 he went to Japan, where he spent a total of 27 years as a missionary. In 1945, he headed the first rescue party to go into Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. He utilized his medical skills in the service of the wounded and the dying, transforming the novitiate into a make-shift hospital for over 200 dying people "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."

Fr. Arrupe became Jesuit vice provincial (1954-58), the first Jesuit provincial for Japan (1958-65), and was elected superior general at the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in 1965. Arrupe resigned due to ill health in 1983 and was the first Jesuit superior general to resign instead of remaining in office until his death. He died in Rome on Feb. 5, 1991.