The School’s Community Service Program is intended to support our mission of training “minds, bodies and hearts for the work of life, and to carry into all we do the highest ideals of character and service.” The experience of volunteering exposes our students to the issues and problems that face many communities, especially our own in Western New York. We hope that their compassionate efforts produce a sense of empowerment. Our program helps students to understand that they can change the world for the better.
Community service in the Upper School has been revamped this year to help students connect their service projects to the community in depth, and to become immersed in a new topic related to service each year. The freshmen are charged with doing projects related to the environment; the sophomore theme is poverty; juniors are doing work around refugee issues; and seniors are focusing on education and literacy. They are encouraged to do a variety of projects, including research into current issues, volunteering at local agencies, and raising awareness at Nichols and in the larger community. Service requirements for students are organized in three categories: students must devise and execute a community service plan with their advisories; they must come up with a large scale project for their whole grade to take part in; and they must do work on their own related to their grade’s theme.
The main goal of the Middle School's community service initiative is to increase our students' awareness of the needs of others. By participating in various activities, our Middle School students realize that their efforts can make a difference in the lives of others. Our primary focus is to assist organizations that serve the Western New York region. While several of our targeted fundraising efforts have been supported by Nichols for many years, other fundraisers are identified by students and faculty on a year-to-year basis depending on immediate needs.