Dedicated Days of Service

Afternoon Program Service

Over the years, Taft has formed deep connections with a wide range of agencies, organizations, support networks, and resource providers that work to keep the community around us vital and strong. Our partnerships with these groups are among the most important bonds students will experience during their time at Taft.

Each season, every Taft student will engage with our service partners with their Afternoon Program activity. This means taking a day off from their normal activity and engaging in the community. By connecting community service initiatives to our Afternoon Program, students and faculty alike learn more about our neighbors. This perspective and understanding not only allows members of the Taft community to make an impact through their dedication to service, but it also allows them to reflect more deeply on the role of service in their lives.

Senior Community Service Day

On the eve of graduation, Taft seniors embark on a Senior Community Service Day, when they return one more time to serve the organizations they have come to know well during their time at Taft. Often their work is a continuation of ongoing service projects, or new initiatives with longtime service partners. It is at once an opportunity to serve the community, and a final salute to service as a Taft student.

Lower Mid Service Initiative

Taft recently introduced an End-of-Year “Crash*,” a multi-day exploration of concepts, ideas, themes, and activities that typically fall outside of the academic year curriculum. (*Did you know that a group of Rhinos is called a crash?) For lower mids—our freshmen—one full day during that program is dedicated to service. In the morning, they work exclusively for partners in Watertown, the place we call home. In the afternoon, they work on campus, primarily supporting our year-end Green Rhino Initiative. At the end of each school year, students are invited to donate their unused, unwanted, or unpackable items to benefit local nonprofits and service providers. Lower mids help with the sorting and distribution of those items, which in recent years have been delivered to a local homeless shelter, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, organizations supporting families in financial distress, a nonprofit helping refugees start new lives in Connecticut, and a group helping those transitioning from homelessness to first homes.