Middle School Service Day

Our 7th graders started our day of service activities by working with 2nd graders at Cale Elementary. (Thanks to Sue Harris, mother of Abigayle, for helping to arrange this visit!). The 7s worked with their young charges on booklets about numbers, shapes and colors in Spanish and English. The 7th graders took their role as the older, more experienced ones in the room seriously, and all had fun. We look for a return visit before long. 7th graders then did service work on campus, including making phone calls to catalog companies to request that we be removed from their mailing lists to reduce paper waste. The 5th and 6th graders enjoyed the best weather of the day when they headed to Darden Towe Park for trash pickup. Tandem will host a Delaney Athletic Conference cross country meet at Darden Towe next Tuesday, October 16. The runners and their fans will, no doubt, appreciate the park beautification. The 5th, 6th and 7th graders ended the day with a recycling relay race - check out some video below. The 8th grade continued the beautification theme with some soggy, mosquito-filled work at Ragged Mountain Natural Area and on the Rivanna Trail at Jordan Park. The 8s restored areas that have been washed away by this summer's rains by doing some seriously heavy lifting of mulch and gravel, and they did so in great spirit under conditions that would leave lesser middle schoolers whining and complaining. One group of 8s lifted hearts rather than landscape material by sharing their Into the Woods repertoire with our neighbors at the Albemarle Health and Rehabilitation Center. Patients there were visibly cheered by the 8th graders' talent along with the individual conversations that followed. One patient said over and over, "You made my day." The Middle School students made our day, too - and made us very proud.