On April 22, Tabor Academy students and faculty – about 600 strong – will fan out across the Southcoast for their second Morning of Service of the year. The school organizes this event each fall and spring to assist local organizations with special projects that can be accomplished in 2-3 hours. Many of the organizations Tabor students will be working with on April 22 are ongoing service partners for the school’s afternoon, evening and weekend service program, partnering on projects on a weekly or monthly basis, allowing students to build stronger relationships and skills that become really valuable over time for both the organization and the students.
During the Morning of Service, students work together within their advisor groups to serve their chosen organization, often one that has a personal connection to a member of the group. For example, Marion resident Connie Pierce, a teacher at Tabor, introduced her students to the First Congregational Church in Marion several years ago. The students now occasionally help serve a monthly Friendship Table meal for the church. On the Morning of Service, her advisor group has been entrusted with a list of special clean-up projects to accomplish, widening the students understanding of the church’s mission.
Some of the tasks students will perform during the Morning of Service include painting fences and spreading mulch at Marion’s Sippican School; painting bathrooms and spreading wood chips for the YMCA preschool program at Sippican School; making blankets for Project Linus; conducting Earth Day road cleanup for the Marion Tree Committee; tree planting with Grow Education in New Bedford; trail clean-up at the Lloyd Center in Dartmouth; springtime garden prep at the Sharing the Harvest Community Farm in Dartmouth; cleaning church pews at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church of Marion; and start-up work at Community Boating Center, New Bedford.
The Morning of Service is a time when Tabor students give back to the community and have the opportunity to learn about the needs of a new organization and the population they serve. Some of these will be one-time projects, while others have or will blossom into real partnerships for progress.
The action starts at 5:00 am on April 22 when the first advisor group will head off for their Morning of Service to cook and serve breakfast at Mercy Meals in New Bedford. Vans and busses will continue departures from Tabor all morning, fanning out across the Southcoast to learn and serve in partnership with our community.