This Month's Best Practice
Each Month the Maryland Center for Character Education (MCCE) picks one of the Best Practices from a Character Education award winning school to share with you.
JANUARY
This month's Best Practices is from an award winning school from 2004-2005.
BEST CHARACTER EDUCATION PRACTICES
School: The Catholic High School of Baltimore
Address: 2800 Edison Highway, Baltimore, MD 21213
Contact: Keith Harmeyer, Principal or
Carolyn Marinari, Guidance Counselor
Phone: 410-732-6200
E-Mail: kharmeyer@tchs.loyola.edu
cmarinari@tchs.loyola.edu
Title of Best Practice: Community Service Day
Primary Character Trait(s) Emphasized: Six Pillars of Character Counts: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship
Objective(s): To share with the less fortunate the time and talent of the students of Catholic High.
Brief Description (including such items as materials needed, persons responsible, sequence of activities, observable results, references, etc.)
Brief Description:
This Community Service Day was coordinated by Carolyn Marinari, a counselor, at Catholic High.
Activities:
After a prayer service and motivational speeches, over 340 Catholic High students, faculty, and staff:
- Washed and cleaned 100 sets of flatware and dishes, packaged 75 lbs. of loose coffee, shelved over 200 lbs, of canned goods and collated over 300 brochures at St. Michael’s Outreach Center.
- Counted and bagged 12, 142 micro-safe tubes for testing blood and labeled over 242 bags for the American Red Cross.
- Filled 60 folders, created holiday cards, and addressed envelopes at Mt. Washington Pediatric Center.
- Distributed 500 meals, passed out supplies, and cleaned the dining room at Our Daily Bread.
- Served 459 meals and passed out clothes and groceries to the homeless and working poor at the Franciscan Center.
- Picked up 7 bags of trash around St. Ambrose Center.
- Fed 150 clients, cleaned tables, and distributed clothes at Manna House.
- For the Belair-Edison Neighborhood Association, folded 2,000 fliers promoting participation in the association and distributed 1,000 of the fliers over 40 blocks.
Read books, sang songs, and assisted with crafts and finger painting with children of St. Jerome’s Head Start.
Folded 1,000 t-shirts for the Race for the Cure, registered 100 people for the race, handed out numbers, sold lightrail vouchers and answered questions for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Assisted with a 1,260 person mailing, assembled nineteen 200-page employee packages and visited 100 patients at St. Agnes Health Care.
Cleared brush, vines and part of an orchard in preparation for blueberry planting and felled 7 trees at Garden Harvest.
Tutored English to beginners, intermediate, and advanced students at the Hispanic Apostolate.
Set-up and manned the flea market at the Joseph Center.
Sorted over 1,000 toys, games, and books by gender and age appropriateness and sorted over 200 Halloween costumes at St. Vincent’s Center.
Assisted with vision screening for 50 preschool children with Maryland Society for Sight.
Played games, helped clients sort mail and pack band-aids, and sang songs for the people at Gallagher Services.
Cut out leaves and helped decorate for Fall while visiting the residents of Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Hospital.
Taught a step routine to 165 students and assisted the first graders with their math at Our Lady of Hope/St. Luke’s School.
Cleaned up the grounds, hallway, and auditorium at The Catholic High School of Baltimore.
The Maryland Center for Character Education
29 West Susquehanna Ave., Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21204Phone: 410-823-4902
Fax: 410-828-9661
E-Mail: MCCEcharacter@aol.com
