Beyond the Milton Bubble: Community Engagement Day Connects Students and Communities
By Isabella Chen ’29
Since its establishment in 2001, Community Engagement Day has been an annual Milton Academy tradition, connecting students with nearby communities through hands-on service projects. On October 14, the event brought together 412 members of Milton Academy—including Class III and IV students and their advisors—participating in 25 partner organizations.
According to Ms. Andrea Geyling-Moore, Milton Academy’s Community Engagement Director, the event’s primary objective is to introduce students to issues in nearby communities through experiences outside the classroom. Ms. Geyling-Moore explained that the goal is for students “to learn through hands-on work that takes them into the community beyond our classrooms and campus.”
At the event’s opening, Elle Thurow ’29, Alyssa Liu ’29, and Harper Simoneau ’29—the Class III community engagement representatives—stated that “the hope is for Milton students to step outside of the Milton bubble.” They also mentioned the nature of the community engagement program, explaining that it was previously called “community service” before the name changed to “community engagement” to reflect how students are “both giving and receiving.”
For some students, the most memorable part of the day was the people they met. Anaya Purusharthy ’29, whose advisory visited an assisted living residence, spent much of the day interacting with elderly residents. Unlike her experience last year, when students made flowers for dementia patients without having much opportunity to interact with them, this year’s visit involved baking cookies, tie-dyeing socks, and going on walks with them. During one walk, Purusharthy recalled discussing inflation and the cost of living with an elderly man. “It just really made me think that I was talking to my own granddad,” she said.
Beyond these conversations, Purusharthy also learned that some residents rarely receive visitors. “Some of them don’t have families, so they don’t get any visitors. For the holidays, they don’t go home to their families or anything.” However, the students’ presence offered companionship. “They seemed pretty happy that we were there, which also made me feel very heartwarming,” Purusharthy said.
Similarly, Ali Hamoda ’29, who visited the Hebrew Home for the Elderly, spent time drawing with the residents and listening to stories about their careers and past experiences. Although understanding what the residents were saying was occasionally challenging, Hamoda said that he “found it rewarding how happy they were even by something simple like drawing and how they talked a lot about themselves.”
However, not every advisory spent the day interacting directly with community members. Liu, whose advisory volunteered at the Epiphany School, initially expected to interact with younger students. Instead, she spent most of her day addressing approximately 200 envelopes. After the event, Liu described that she found it rewarding to see how her work relieved the employees’ workload. She recalled one employee expressing her happiness, saying, “You guys were the fastest volunteers I’ve ever seen. I can go home early now!”
Rosmery Leyva-Cortes ’30 also found herself enjoying a task she hadn’t expected to like: picking up litter near a watershed in Milton. “I honestly thought this task was going to be pretty boring because I’ve never actually decided to pick up trash for fun,” Leyva-Cortes said. However, walking along the trails introduced her to unfamiliar parts of Milton, including a large river. Throughout the activity, she expressed that she found it particularly rewarding “when we would finish a specific spot of the trail and see how much cleaner it now was compared to how we first found it!”
This single day of community engagement required months of preparation. Ms. Geyling-Moore explained that organizing Community Engagement Day involved “reaching out to organizations months in advance to get on their calendar… [confirming] the right number of people, supplies, etc.” Despite these logistical demands, she stated that there were no major organizational changes this year.
To assess Community Engagement Day’s impact, Ms. Geyling-Moore gathered feedback from participating advisories and the partner organizations. She reported that “so far, [there are] only very positive reviews about physical tasks completed and many less quantifiable but very meaningful, uplifting people-to-people interactions.”
As Community Engagement Day marks 25 years since its establishment, Ms. Geyling-Moore emphasized that participants’ “goodwill and energy” make a difference not only in their own experiences but also in how partner organizations experience the Milton community. By stepping outside the “Milton bubble,” students not only contributed their time and effort but also returned with stories, experiences, and a better understanding of the communities around them.
Source: CEPP
