Service and Stewardship
Let Your Life Speak!
Friends believe that faith requires action in the world, thus Friends schools seek to promote a caring community, peaceful resolution of conflict, and service to others. The adults in a Friends school community help children grow into caring and responsible individuals who recognize their interconnectedness with the larger human family. Children learn at the most fundamental level that service to others and thoughtful stewardship of the environment or institutions such as libraries, parks and museums creates ties and builds community.
In keeping with the Quaker belief that “there is that of God in everyone,” children begin to understand how to find the gifts and unique qualities in every individual, and to share of themselves generously and without condescension. Service learning and stewardship are introduced in gentle, age-appropriate ways. Students begin by serving their own immediate community. Each child completes a daily chore, such as cleaning work areas, tending our school garden, or collecting the recycling. Writing letters of appreciation or condolence to school community members is an emphasis in the early writing program. Teachers and parents have worked together to build school ties to organizations, both local and international, so that service learning may be developed as a thoughtful, sustained program. Here in the Mission, San Francisco Friends School has coordinated projects with La Raza Community Resource Center, Mission Head Start, Francis of Assisi Senior Housing, and the Homeless Prenatal Program. The school has also worked with state, national and international organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Heifer Project, and Viviendas Leon in Nicaragua.
At SFFS service to others includes the sharing of love, respect, created or collected material goods and - most especially - purposeful work.