Chesed/Community Service Hours Guidelines

Chesed / Community Service Hours Guidelines

The Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy Upper School community service requirement is designed to encourage students to consider ways in which they may give back to the community, to encounter people and institutions that they would not have encountered otherwise, to learn more about themselves and their community, and to take initiative and responsibility.

Basic requirement

Each Upper School student is required to complete 36 hours of community service per year.

Deadlines

Summer hours must be documented by October 8. Any summer hours not handed in by then will not be counted.

Service performed before December 1 must be documented by December 1 to be counted.

Service performed between December 1 and June 1 must be documented by June 1 in order to be counted.

Seniors must have hours documented no later than two weeks prior to the date of the senior trip in order to be eligible to participate.

If a student is unable to complete the 36 hours within a given school year, he or she may make up the remaining hours during the summer.

If any make-up hours are done during the summer, no hours from that summer will be applied to the subsequent year. Summer hours may only count towards one year either for the subsequent year (for students who are up to date) or for the previous year (for students making up hours).

Nature of service

Community service is meant to include any volunteer service which benefits a community beyond the student and his or her family. In this sense, community may be a neighborhood, a synagogue or school community, a municipality or state, etc.

Service may be performed to aid either the Jewish or general community.

Any service for which payment is received, or for which payment is customarily expected (e.g. babysitting, tutoring, yard-work, shoveling snow) will not generally count towards fulfillment of the requirement. However, service performed for individuals (such as the sick or elderly) who depend on the community for basic assistance, may be counted as community service. See Rabbi Blaustein do discuss specific cases that arise.

Work done as part of an internship (including campaigning, canvassing, etc.) is not eligible to count as community service. Such internships are encouraged, as they provide rewarding experiences to many students however, the primary purpose of such internships is not service to the community, and as such are not eligible to be counted towards the community service requirement. Internships for charity institutions and non-profits may count; see Rabbi Blaustein to discuss specific cases that arise.

Variety of service

No more than 28 hours may be earned from any one activity in a given year. This means that each student must find at least two venues to carry out community service.

Value of service

Certain services have pre-determined numbers of values.

o      Crew members of the Middle School HADAS production will receive a maximum of 5 hours,

o      Lower School davening leaders will receive a maximum of 18 hours,

o      Scoreboard operating or scorekeeping will result in a maximum of 15 hours.

o      Camp counselors may receive a maximum of 2 hours a week, for each week worked as a volunteer.

“Leining”

Torah or megillah reading will receive credit for preparation time only when the aliyot (or perakim, in the case of megillah) are read from a scroll. (This means that haftorah reading and reading of Kohelet, Eichah, etc. will be given credit only in the rare circumstance that it is done from a scroll.)

For each shabbat aliyah read, 0.5 hours of credit will be given; for megillah reading, 0.5 hours of credit will be given for perakim 1-9.

Questions about what counts

If you are not sure if an activity will count towards service hours, please check with Rabbi Blaustein prior to beginning the activity. Note that participating in any non-approved Upper School extra-curricular activity does not qualify for service hours.

Do not assume that a given activity will count as community service. Please check with Rabbi Blaustein in advance to ascertain the eligibility of specific hours.

How to document hours

Any hours which are to count towards the requirement must be properly documented. To properly document hours, a form must be filled out. Forms are available in Ms. Harris's office, in the guidance office and on the Upper School website under the Chesed/Community Service link.

All forms must be filled out entirely, properly dated, and signed by an appropriate supervisor.

Documentation which is not on an official school form may be rejected. In extenuating circumstances, email verification from a supervisor may be accepted. If you feel that there is such a circumstance please speak to Rabbi Blaustein before asking the supervisor to send an email.

Special recognition

Students who complete over 100 hours of community service in a given year will be recognized for their excellence.

Negligence

All students will be expected to be up to date by the first week of school.

Students who are not up to date at the beginning of the year, will have 3 hours added to their requirement. (E.g. sophomores who begin the year without having 36 hours documented will have 3 hours added, juniors who begin the year without having 72 hours recorded will have 3 hours added, etc.)

Students who owe hours from previous years may be denied the opportunity participate in extracurricular activities.

Seniors who have not completed their requirement will not receive a diploma and may be denied the privilege of graduating with their class until the service hours have been completed.