Upper School Gets the Job Done on Annual Day of Service

On a day that has been a Penn Charter tradition for 10 years, the entire Upper School pitched in to make a difference across the city on the Louis Savino Day of Service on Oct. 10. From raking up debris on the historic Walnut Lane Bridge to working with handicapped children at the Widener School, more than 450 students and teachers honored with their community service Louis Savino, a Penn Charter student who died in 2000.

Louis's mother, Toni Pellegrini, and his aunt, Lorraine Sikora, began the day with a remembrance of Louis and a presentation on the Louis T. Savino III Foundation. The nonprofit strives to prevent sudden cardiac death and raise money to purchase automated external defibrillators for schools and sports programs. Louis collapsed on a Bucks County soccer field of an undetected heart condition the night before the Day of Service in October 2000.

Louis's enthusiasm for community service motivated Pellegrini and Sikora to establish the nonprofit, Pellegrini said. She encouraged students to embrace service: "Do it from your heart."

Penn Charter freshmen raked debris and litter and removed invasive vines on and around Fairmount Park's Walnut Lane Bridge in anticipation of the celebration of the bridge's 100-year anniversary on Oct. 18. The bridge was once the longest and highest concrete arch bridge in the world, connecting Germantown and Roxborough over the Wissahickon Gorge.

Their mission, said Jim Ballengee, director of service learning at Penn Charter, "was really to make that bridge look as good as possible for the rededication ceremony."

In Germantown, students helped paint the interior of a house and rebuild its porch for Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network. After helping put up roof supports, 10th and 11th graders tore out the floorboards of the old porch.

"I broke a saw - the blade," said sophomore Margaret Rollins, "but then I learned how to replace it." "We talked to the pastor of the church that owns the house," she added. "He was really happy that we were doing it."

Penn Charter has worked with NPIHN for a decade, helping homeless families move from one place of worship to another and recently helping to provide permanent housing. "It's not just us landing and helping out," Ballengee said of PC's service program. "We put ourselves on equal footing with the people we help. For our kids, I hope that translates into a lifetime of empathy for others, serving others. They see it as something normal that people do."

At Cradles to Crayons, half of the senior class sorted donations, cleaned toys and "shopped" for specific children in need, working from a list provided by area agencies. Sebastien Lundby-Thomas was one of the shoppers. "I would go to [other students] and say 'I need seven days worth of clothes for a kid this size,'" he said. "Or a birthday gift. …I enjoyed it a lot. I got a lucky job because I was seeing the kid's name and getting info about what they need or what they want. We would find little, specific things to fill their bag."

At Frankford Friends, students rehabilitated a natural habitat garden used by that school's children. They did similar outdoor work at Historic Rittenhouse Town, Awbury Arboretum and various community centers. At Grumblethorpe, the historic house on Germantown Avenue, students picked and washed vegetables that would be sold at a farmer's market, planted hollyhocks and fed chickens.

"It's a good day," said Doug Uhlmann, director of Penn Charter's Gummere Library. "The kids were really busy. They put in fence posts, dug out bamboo, and they're putting in this walkway."

The bamboo, explained junior Liz Binswanger, "is an invasive species."

Other sites included Philabundance, the Salvation Army, Nationalities Service Center, Taylor School and Fairmount Early Intervention Center.

The Day of Service has "grown from about 11 sites to more than 20," Ballengee said. "It was a mix. Some sites were long-term sustainable relationships, and they led us to others, where it was our first time. We identify a community in need and work with them."

Photos of the Louis Savino Day of Service