Social Justice students with Mrs. Gaudette

Locally, the children of St. Peter School are picking up the work done in 2005 and 2006 by the Young Vincentains, a service club made up of 60 students from all grades who performed a variety of community service activities in the school, parish and city community. As did the Young Vincentians, social justice classes will visit and share in activities with elders at a local assisted living home and participate in a food drive for a local meals plan. In addition, each social justice class will adopt a family at a local shelter and hold a drive for specific goods that are requested by that family. In doing so, the children are answering the call to care for the poor and vulnerable among us. “The children are learning and living the concepts of social justice,” said Gaudette.

In an international example of service to others, students have begun the process of adopting a sister school in Haiti in a community that has been devastated by four hurricanes this season. As part of this, the students will establish an email link with the children affected by these hurricanes so that they may communicate with them directly, gaining firsthand insight into the challenges faced by their peers in that area. The children will drive all aspects of this project, from raising funds to sending school supplies. To support this effort, during this year’s Christmas Bazaar they will set up a craft table where partcipants will create Christmas ornaments, the proceeds of which will be sent to their sister school in Haiti. They will also sell crafts made by people who live in Haiti, in the community that the children are supporting. In this way, the children are actively involved in fostering the dignity of the human person.

In another international effort, the social justice classes will contribute to the Heirfer International Foundation during the Lent and Easter seasons. Dedicated to “ending hunger and poverty and caring for the earth,” the organization works with communities around the world, providing livestock, training and related services to small-scale farmers.

Illustrative of their concern for the environment, social justice classes will refine the school’s recycling program. In one aspect of this the children will recycle crayon stubs to make new ones for others to use while visiting local health clinic waiting rooms. Also, in celebration of the October 4 Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment, the children held a drive to recycle old towels and blankets for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) animals.

Within the wider St. Peter Parish community, parishoners are working with the Cambridge/Somerville Catholic Charities in funding a local food pantry. Together with the efforts of the students community, the parish community is focused on service to others as a way of life. As St. Peter Pastor Father Leonard O’Malley explained, “The spirit of service is basic to the entire parish community.”

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