Press Release

Release Date: February 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Susie Pickering

Oak Lane Day School

137 Stenton Ave, Blue Bell, PA 19422

Phone: 610-825-1055

Fax: 610-825-9288

Email: spickering@oaklanedayschool.org

Community Service Projects Reach Near and Far

Throughout the year at Oak Lane Day School, great effort is made to instill in the students a sense of being a part of a larger and more complex community than that of just daily school life. Through its curriculum, special visitors, and community service projects, Oak Lane encourages its children to be active citizens of the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Oak Lane Day School is a celebration of purposeful industry, community awareness, and general bonhomie. Each year, the school undertakes three service projects that are tailored to the developmental ages and abilities of the students. The youngest children work with their parents and teachers making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to fill the larder of Stenton Family Manor, located in Germantown. Evergreen Adult Day Program in Chestnut Hill welcomes intermediate-aged children and their families for craft-making and spirited games of Bingo, and the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders take their love of music on the road and perform a concert.

This year, each project generated its own unique energy and source of satisfaction. The youngest children had a jolly time spreading P.B. & J. and were excited to learn that they had made 1,370 sandwiches to give to the Manor. The older kids sang their hearts out to great acclaim at Sunrise Assisted Living of Lafayette Hill, and at Evergreen, Oak Lane Community Service Director Sherry Shaeffer was greeted with a lovely surprise. A regular attendee of the Adult Day Program approached her and gave her a hug exclaiming, "I remember you! I'm so glad that you're back!" The message of the day is clear and simple: It feels good to help those around you and to make warm connections and good memories that last year to year.

Earlier this winter, a new service project was created and designed to help people much farther afield. During the school's annual winter-time project known as Winterlude, Oak Lane engaged in a school-wide study of bread. An outdoor bread oven was built on campus with the help of visitor Dorise Kowalewski, a baker and humanitarian who works with Haiti Projects. Haiti Projects is a non-profit charitable organization, which was founded in 1995 and operates in Fonds des Blancs, Haiti, an extremely poor area where families live on less than one U.S. dollar a day. Dorise's enthusiasm over the good works done by Haiti Projects inspired the Oak Lane community to act as well. Organized by our 6th graders, and over the course of a few days, approximately 90 loaves of pumpkin, whole grain, and sourdough bread were baked and sold, yielding $750 that was donated to Haiti Projects' Education Initiative to help build a primary school on the island. (For more information on Winterlude, click here.)

Community service projects are taken very seriously at Oak Lane Day School. The activities themselves are generally considered to be fun and engaging, but the philosophy behind them emphasizes the notion that to be a successful human being, one must reach out beyond one's own personal sphere of experience and connect with the larger world all around.

Oak Lane Day School Information

An independent elementary school, founded in 1916 and located in Blue Bell, Oak Lane Day School serves a diverse population of boys and girls. Oak Lane honors each child's unique individuality while fostering intellectual, creative, academic, and personal growth within a diverse community of active, engaged learners. Small class sizes and an atmosphere that encourages children to develop their academic and social skills are priorities at Oak Lane, where learning is a meaningful and joyous pursuit. Oak Lane's country-like property of 30 acres along Butler Pike and Stenton Avenue boasts a stream, pond, woods, meadows, and specimen trees as well as athletic fields and playgrounds.

Oak Lane Day School is accredited by the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools (PAIS), and is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS).