Inspiring Our Students: Stories of Service

One of my family’s favorite children’s books is Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Miss Rumphious’s grandfather tells her when she is very young that she “must do something to make the world more beautiful.” As she grows into an adult, Miss Rumphius travels the world and finally finds her way to the Maine coast. She recalls her grandfather’s words and embarks on a mission to plant wild lupine flowers throughout her village and along the coast. The story ends with an elderly Miss Rumphius giving her grandniece the same advice she had received long ago, “You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we all lived our lives according to that mantra? During the last week I learned of three inspiring people who are doing just that: attorney Bryan Stevenson, eye surgeon (and alumni parent) Dr. Gary Barth, and design architecture executive Cheri Melillo. 

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Bryan Stevenson spoke last Friday at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) conference about his life mission to challenge bias in the justice system for people who are poor, of color, and/or disabled. While it was clear through the stories he told how incredibly difficult this work is, all of us listening understood his main message to be not one of frustration or despair, but of hope. Two comments resonated with me, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” and “You ultimately judge the civility of a society not by how it treats the rich, the powerful, the protected and the highly esteemed, but by how it treats the poor, the disfavored and the disadvantaged.”

Dr. Barth, whose son Dylan is a member of the class of 2004, runs the Eye Care Center in Santa Rosa. He was featured in a Press Democrat article last week because he paid for all residents of a nearby family homeless shelter to see the new Star Wars movie and have dinner at Chevys. During the dinner, a father stood up and thanked Dr. Barth and his staff and promised that one day he, too, would do something similar for others.

Cheri Melillo and her colleagues at the Society for Design Administration launched Canstruction as a way to get engineers, architects, and designers engaged with doing something about poverty and hunger in local communities. After my family visited the local Canstruction event (and voted for the SCDS project, of course), I wondered how this great service event came about and was surprised to learn that it started almost 25 years ago! Ms. Melillo served as the volunteer Executive Director for 17 years, until her death in 2009. Canstruction has expanded to over 150 cities worldwide and more than 40 million pounds of food has been donated to shelters and food banks. It is recognized for being one of the most consistent and successful events for raising hunger awareness and food donations as well as an engaging way for people to be part of a creative and fun challenge. We will hear more next week from Ms. Hill about how our Canstruction team did.