Since 2009, Boys’ Latin has held an all day, all school service event — Service Learning Day. The whole day is set aside for all students, grades K-12, to work together on service projects with a single theme. This event grew to become an annual program after it was so well-received by the students, faculty/staff, parent volunteers, and the community.

In 2012, the SLD theme was “From Hunger to Healthy Eating.” BL students explored the issue of hunger from all angles in just one day — from tilling the soil for planting, observing bees and learning about pollination to writing letters to our politicians, coming up with initiatives to end hunger in Baltimore city, exploring hunger through literature and creating youth learning materials for SNAP. By 9:30am, BL had loaded 300 lunches into a van bound for the Franciscan Center who served them that day. By 11:40, the boys loaded another 240 lunches into some parents’ cars bound for Manna House and My Sister’s Place. Throughout the morning, a rotating delivery service took over 80 casseroles plus extra hot dogs to Our Daily Bread. In addition, 300 more lunches were packed to be served at Paul’s Place.

The lessons from this service learning day are intended to carry forward for the boys and instill a greater understanding of issues in the community and world around us. Several activities extended beyond service learning day into other opportunities for the boys to continue their involvement in our community