Choosing a school for their children is one of the most important decisions parents must make.  For the parents of more than six million children, the choice is private education.  They choose religious and independent schools for many reasons:  quality academics, a safe and orderly environment, moral and ethical values, caring teachers, supportive communities, and much more. To celebrate the back-to-school season, CAPE has a new video on how religious and independent schools promote the public good and provide a path to a promising future. View the four-minute video below and also at  www.capenet.org.

Service Learning at Menaul

Menaul School has been committed to developing student’s hearts and souls as well as their minds for over 115 years.  To this end, the Menaul School community is actively engaged in service learning in a variety of ways. 

Mission Week

Every year during the week prior to Easter, each class, 6^th – 12^th, is involved in a community service project that is overseen by Menaul School faculty and staff.  Younger students engage in local projects and older students travel to areas of need outside of Albuquerque and even outside of New Mexico. 

Examples of Mission Week projects include working at a local food/clothing bank, cleaning/renovating a homeless shelter, building a house in Mexico, cleaning a section of a polluted river or doing maintenance work and running day camps at an orphanage.  This year’s junior class served the homeless in Denver, Colorado through a program with Center for Student Missions –http://www.csm.org/denver.php – and the senior class spent the week serving Presbyterian Churches in the Phoenix area.  

The purpose of this week is to put Menaul School students in direct contact with those in need, giving them the opportunity to live out the scriptures they hear so often in chapel and class:  “For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me . . . ”  Matt. 25:35-36.  And “if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."  Matt. 10:42

Bugg Lights Christmas Display

Beginning the Friday after Thanksgiving and ending Christmas Eve, Menaul School is the home to one of the best known Christmas light displays in Albuquerque – the Bugg Lights.  The entire Menaul community is involved in hosting the display – from parking cars to handing out brochures to selling hot chocolate - the Bugg Light Christmas Display is Menaul’s gift to Albuquerque and New Mexico.  (All donations received go to fund our Mission Week activities – see above.)  

Community Service Graduation Requirement –

Menaul School seniors must complete forty (40) hours of community service during their senior year.  The Director of Academics must approve all community service hours.  Students in the past have served both their school and their community in the following ways:  taking tickets at sporting events, cleaning up following on campus activities, tutoring, working with a local non-profit, etc.

Other Service Learning Opportunities –

In addition to the formal service learning programs already mentioned, Menaul students have numerous opportunities to give back throughout the year.  Some examples:

• Special collections and prayers for food/clothing banks, homeless shelters, and other ministries taken during chapel;
• Special collections and prayers for members of our community with specific needs;
• The Menaul School Christmas Honor Dinner;
• The opportunity to lead one of our daily chapels;

As Reverend Buddy, Menaul School Chaplain, says, “Community service is in our DNA – it’s just who we are.”