The week of Thanksgiving is the perfect time to reflect upon all we have to be grateful for and to give back to our wider community. Each year, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the members of CORE (Viewpoint’s Community Service Honors Society) organize a Community Service Day for Upper School students. This year, it was held on November 24 and it was a huge success.

The members of CORE would like to extend their gratitude to the more than 250 Viewpoint student and faculty volunteers who joined together at the six different projects across the Los Angeles area to participate in this remarkable day of service. CORE members work to find and schedule projects that resonate with each student and teacher in the Upper School, thereby proving its acronym “Community Outreach for Everyone.”

Community Service Day organizer Pam Oseransky, Viewpoint’s Coordinator of Service Learning, shared, “This year, we have more volunteers than ever before. Our students and staff are so excited to be able to volunteer again and to do whatever they can to help our community.” Volunteers were involved in an array of activities that included preparing some of the 21,000 warm meals delivered each week by Project Angel Food. Volunteers also assembled 300 sack lunches and 300 snack bags for Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, created cards and wrote letters of gratitude to support our veterans and first responders through Hearts for Heroes, packed items for holiday gift bags at the Pete Brown, Jr. Tennis Academy, assembled gift bags for My Stuff Bags Foundation in Westlake, created decorative bookmarks to encourage literacy with Wise Readers to Leaders, and delivered and sorted donations from our Primary, Lower, Middle, and Upper School students at the West Valley Food Pantry in Woodland Hills.

On Tuesday, November 23, the Eighth Grade students visited the Primary and Lower School as part of their “Morning of Gratitude,” which included reading together and decorating bags with uplifting messages and pictures to be used by the volunteers preparing lunches for the Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission. The week before, members of CORE visited the Primary School and made a video for the Lower School students about the work of the Rescue Mission and importance of volunteering. They encouraged the younger students to join CORE when they reach Upper School and become part of Viewpoint’s community of volunteers. 

Vanessa Harrington, Assistant Head of Primary School, spoke of the importance of these shared activities between divisions. She said, “This is a special time for our community to come together before Thanksgiving. The older students are modeling the importance of giving back, as well as making positive, uplifting connections with our young students. The Primary and Lower School students feel a part of a larger Viewpoint family, joining together in a meaningful way.”