Hour of Service: December 2024

This holiday season, the Oakwood School community came together to make an impact on individuals in our local community.

Introducing Hour of Service

To introduce the project, the Student Council Association (SCA) Service Committee members recorded a video, created posters, and wrote messages to share with students and families. Read the text of their video below:

This is a message from the Service Committee. Every winter, the SCA Service Committee chooses a service project to support a local organization. This December, we are collecting donations for food and snack items to build Power Packs for Food for Others. Food for Others is an organization in Northern Virginia that distributes food to local families. The Power Pack Program provides weekend meal packs for students experiencing food insecurity. The program serves 45 schools and about 3,500 students every week. Please use the Amazon Wishlist to purchase an item and send it directly to Oakwood by Monday, December 16th. After we receive the items, our whole school will work together to build power packs for local elementary students. Then, SCA members will deliver Power Packs to Food for Others in Fairfax so they can distribute them before the holiday break. Thank you for helping us spread kindness.

Expanding Our Reach with Community Support

After receiving the video message and learning about the project, a local company with an Oakwood connection contacted Mrs. Strouse, Director of Student Services. They generously offered additional funding to expand the impact of the Hour of Service! With an incredible amount of food and snack items already arriving on campus, the Service Committee looked to additional local nonprofits to help. Mrs. Strouse found Communities In Schools of Northern Virginia (CISNOVA) and the opportunity to build hygiene kits. With the generous donation, the SCA Service Committee ordered multiple items, so each hygiene kit included a toothbrush, travel toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body soap, deodorant, and chapstick.

A Community Effort in Action

During the Hour of Service, Oakwood students and staff worked together in an assembly-style format in multiple locations throughout the school to pack over 140 hygiene kits and nearly 600 individual power-pack meals. Each bag included important items suggested by the nonprofits and a handwritten note or card from an Oakwood student. A representative from CISNOVA picked up the hygiene kits and drove them directly to schools in Prince William County, and Oakwood 8th graders packed the Oakwood bus with the power pack meals. Service Committee members delivered them to Food for Others. In total, 819 pounds of food was donated!

How You Can Get Involved

The SCA Service Committee is extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to this project through a financial donation or purchasing items from the Amazon wishlist. We are especially thankful for the time spent together as a community supporting individuals in the Northern Virginia community. 

If your family, company, or organization would like to partner with the SCA Service Committee, reach out to Laura Strouse, our Director of Student Services, to learn how you can help spread kindness. If you would like to make a contribution to directly impact Oakwood School students and staff and support the mission of Oakwood School, visit our Annual Fund page.