Community Engaged Learning: Belonging & Purpose

An understanding that students feel and bring a sense of belonging and ensuring their academic experience is connected to a larger purpose are essential components of a St. Paul’s education. Consider your own life when you’ve felt a loss of belonging or purpose. Being connected to others in a meaningful way is core to feeling a sense of belonging, and being in partnership with others is core to feeling a sense of purpose. Core ingredients of a St. Paul’s education include community engagement with our neighbors in mutually beneficial ways and ongoing experiences that build a sense of belonging in our community. 

Enter, St. Paul’s Families

We are grateful to our families for their ongoing support of the St. Paul’s food pantry, packing and delivering holiday meals, and of  Serenity House,  with hygiene supplies for their Community Wellness events and special holiday desserts for their meal distribution. See below for bountiful holiday opportunities to support both of these organizations. 

In the Neighborhood

We’ve rejoined our beloved senior residents at St. Paul’s Towers, where our kindergartners do a monthly sing-along with their second grade buddies. Residents also come to school regularly to read with our younger students.

Multiple grades partnered with residents at St. Paul’s Towers in advocacy to improve traffic safety, which resulted in changes at Bay and Montecito. We worked with our city council representatives, Carroll Fife, Tonya Love, and Dan Kalb along with the mayor’s office and have successfully achieved goals in partnership with them to improve pedestrian safety. Our middle schoolers’ work with our elected representatives continues regarding local impacts due to climate change. These officials and other partners from neighborhood organizations attended our Climate Rally and expressed their support to our students.

Our fourth graders are partnered with Serenity House, an organization run by women to empower women. They also serve the wider community of unhoused and food or housing insecure folks. We are grateful to our families for your support of this partnership. Our fifth grade students partner with The Gardens at Lake Merritt in connection with their science curriculum. Our third graders continue their longitudinal study in partnership with Cornell University Bird Lab. They are also connected with our sixth graders and their ongoing work surrounding ecology and relationships with multiple partners including Lake Merritt Institute and Rotary Nature Center Friends  in support of the health and understanding of Lake Merritt. 

What can YOU do? Join us in the neighborhood. 

Serenity House Needs: 

Please sign up here to provide specific gift requests for a family from the children and moms who are supported by Serenity House. 

Sign up to bring a dessert for the Serenity House holiday meal. Please make a dessert for 8-10 people and drop off to Serenity House at 2363 San Pablo Avenue between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on Monday, December 23.  

Food Pantry Needs: 

We will be looking to our families for support in particular with our food pantry food packaging and delivery on Christmas day. The greater need is regarding delivery. We will have 15 slots available for packaging but up to 30 for delivery. It is incredibly meaningful as you are able to meet with some of the folks to whom you are delivering meals.