More than 450 members of the River Oaks Baptist School community—including teachers, students, parents, and School staff—donated over 1,200 hours of service on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to honor the activist’s legacy of service.
ROBS’ second annual All-School Day of Service connected volunteers to seven different nonprofits around the city. They focused on projects that target some of our city’s biggest concerns, including hunger, homelessness, and illiteracy.
- Hunger: Volunteers organized and distributed food, including bagging over 2,000 pounds of rice, at the Houston Food Bank. Other volunteers repackaged 950 pounds of beans, rice, and flour for distribution at food pantries at the Christian Community Service Center (CCSC) and Mission Centers of Houston.
- Homelessness: Volunteers prepared 75 no-sew blankets to warm the homeless, and our second graders will finish the job in a few weeks. Other volunteers assembled over 600 hygiene kits for the needy at the CCSC.
- Illiteracy: Volunteers donated, sorted, and transported books for Books Between Kids. Donations exceeded 3,100 books.
- Serving First Responders: Volunteers prepared snack baskets for first responders and personally delivered them to twelve local fire and police stations.
- Lifting Up Our Neighbors: Students created over 400 cards with messages of encouragement to kids living in homeless shelters, thank you notes to first responders, and Valentine’s wishes for Meals on Wheels recipients.
For ROBS, serving the community is bigger than one day. Service learning is integrated into the curriculum with grade level service projects throughout the year. “Service isn’t about checking a box one time a year,” said Head of School Leanne Reynolds. Service learning requires students to learn about the issue their project seeks to address, participate in a hands-on activity to address it, and reflect on their experience in a structured way (e.g. through a drawing, essay, etc.). It’s giving students a deeper understanding of some of the world’s challenges and showing them how to help address those challenges. “The All-School Day of Service is a beautiful example of the impact our kids can have when empowered with knowledge, character, and faith.”
