If you stumbled into Good Hall in the Upper School of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart on the first day of Social Action, you have likely been met with a flurry of activity. Any new member of the community might describe it as utter chaos, but students and teachers alike understand their particular roles. First Academic, with their ironed white shirts and new shoes, chatter before their orientation to the Social Action program. Second Academics, confident and empowered after their year of learning, file onto buses that will soon leave Stone Ridge. As they venture outside the gates of school, they will experience first-hand the meaning of service and the plight of the marginalized of our society. With the upperclassmen, however, there is a different and distinct aura of energy emanating from their conversations. Excitement, yet trepidation, consumes them as they prepare to leave for the sites they selected in May of the previous year. Some students have volunteered at their sites before, others have not; yet, for each upperclassmen alike, there is a understanding that this is a new year of commitment.
Each September, Stone Ridge provides its students with a fresh start through Social Action. Whether students leave campus or remain on school grounds, there is an opportunity for every girl to prove herself in a world that is not governed by grades, papers, and recollection of hard facts. Ultimately, it will be patience, generosity, and compassion that will dictate their success or failure in their Social Action experience. Metro cards in hand or faculty drivers in tow, the students left campus with the intention of making small and large changes alike in the Washington, DC community. As the flurry of activity trickled outside the school’s front doors and the First Academic moved into their orientation groups, the lobby of the high school quickly grew quite once again.
Once everyone else departed, Laura and I began to formulate our vision of service for the year. With the creation of this website, we wish to share the essence of Social Action. Our goal is to create a site to define “Social Action at Stone Ridge.” It is incredibly difficult to summarize a four-year experience in a few sentence when talking with parents, prospective students, or friends. Hopefully, this website will develop in such a way that it effectively captures the multifaceted nature of Social Action in our Sacred Heart community.
