Bromley Brook Students Give Back to Community Through Volunteering

At Bromley Brook boarding school for girls, students don't only get a solid education, insight into themselves and opportunities to increase their self-esteem, they also get a chance to give back to the community.

From volunteering at a local senior citizen home to helping organize an event for the Special Olympics, the girls have ample opportunities to make a difference for themselves and for others.

"It's a self-esteem booster. The girls feel good when they feel they are helping other people," said Mary Jo DeGrandi, MS, coordinator of Special Therapeutic Programs at Bromley Brook. "They also get a chance to see that other people in the world are struggling, and realize they can help them, just as they are being helped."

During the school year, all students participate in some form of community service. Rather than see it as a chore, most students are excited about the chance to volunteer, said DeGrandi. "They view it as a way to give back, whether to their immediate school community or to the community at large," she explained.

Community Involvement

Some of the organizations for which the students at Bromley Brook volunteer include the following:

  • Equinox Terrace, an assisted living home where girls visit with residents, read them books, help them knit and participate in recreational activities. On Thanksgiving, all girls who are at Bromley Brook for the holiday visit the residents of the home and help serve a holiday meal.
  • Habitat for Humanity, which the girls can help build homes for once a month from May to October.
  • Special Olympics of Vermont, which was so impressed with students at Bromley Brook and their commitment to volunteering that officials from the organization asked students to help run a school-wide charity golf tournament in August 2009.
  • The Collaborative, an organization that focuses on helping teenagers make healthy choices around drugs and alcohol. Bromley Brook students participate in peer leadership retreats twice a year and support community events held by the organization.
  • Girls on the Run, a program that pairs high school students with elementary school kids to teach them lessons on self-esteem, abstaining from drugs and alcohol and how to make healthy choices. At the end of the two- to three-month program, all the students participate in a 5k run.
  • Lund Family Center, which works with pregnant and parenting teenagers, and can have a powerful effect on students, said DeGrandi. "It helps them put things into perspective," she said. "It's a powerful wake-up call for the girls."
Girls also organize events, such as a car wash, on the Bromley Brook campus to give back to their school community. They also often participate in larger community events such as the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Tubbs Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer and Ski for Heat, a ski-a-thon to raise money for fuel assistance for families in southern Vermont.

The girls do not currently receive credit at Bromley Brook for their volunteer hours, but the hours do accrue. Those hours can be used if students transition to another boarding school or a public school that may have community service requirements, said Sharon Hartunian, LICSW, LADC 1, CADAC, Bromley Brook's clinical director.

Instead, the girls are motivated by the chance to participate in something that gives them a different perspective.

"Volunteering is a motivator for girls to feel better about themselves," said Hartunian. "It makes them feel more confident, and a chance to feel as though they are participating and giving back."

Benefits of Volunteering

Volunteering has been shown to have a positive effect on high school students in more ways than just increasing their self-confidence. According to America's Teenage Volunteers, a survey conducted for the organization Independent Sector, volunteering is beneficial to teenagers for many reasons:

  • Learning how to respect others, and to be helpful and kind.
  • Understanding people who are different from themselves.
  • Finding opportunities to develop leadership skills.
  • Becoming more patient.
  • Understanding the qualities of good citizenship.
  • Learning how to solve community problems.
  • Learning more about how government and voluntary organizations work.
More than 70 percent of teens who were surveyed by Independent Sector said that volunteering gives them a new perspective, allows them to do something for a cause that they believe in and is an important activity to the people they respect. As a result of their volunteer efforts, teens reported doing better in school or improving grades, developing new career goals and learning about career options.

Though students at Bromley Brook are not required to participate in community service, the expectation that they will helps them create a sense of community, improved self-confidence and a better educational experience.