Service is a huge part of ministry at John Carroll, and students get involved within their four years. There is always some type of activity or news regarding a service project.
This year John Carroll welcomed new Service-Learning Coordinator Kristen Brown. Ms. Brown said there are some new opportunities and updates to the overall program.
Ms. Brown explained how they are currently in the process of updating the service website “which will include over 50 different organizations that you can serve for and a direct link that you click on to sign up to make things really easy for students to find service opportunities.”
Additionally, there will be QR codes posted around the hallways throughout the building as well as on the campus ministry bulletin board with the same list as the website. There are also always new updates in the weekly Sunday emails with the latest service ministry news.
A couple of opportunities coming up include the St. Michael-St. Clement Christmas Bazaar, the Thanksgiving Food Drive, and the Bel Air Community Clean Up. Information can be found on the website and bulletin board.
There is a TV placed in the Student Service hallway filled with information.
Mrs. Brown said, “Many students don’t know in the Student Services hallway on the TV monitor, there are different opportunities for service that are coming up for each month. Currently it’s all focused in October and some for November, too.”
Coming up is a service-based sophomore retreat at St. Joan of Arc where students will be working in classrooms with children from Pre-K to third grade.
Another new update is that the service hour balance is now available at any time in Veracross. There is a new link in the Veracross parent and the student portals to view service hours. In the Student Portal the link will be under “Student Links” heading on the right side of the page. In the Parent Portal the link will be on the “Links tab” under each child’s name.
Before service hours were updated quarterly on report cards, but now students can see their total hours at any given time. It will take about a week for it to transfer over to Veracross after a student logs hours in Mobile Serve.
The Thanksgiving Food Drive at JC will begin on Monday of next week. Each grade level is asked to bring in certain items, and the goal is for each student and faculty member to bring in a minimum of two items.