Community Service Day: 837 Milton Students Learn While They Serve
by Jasmine Reid '09

On April 29, 2009, Milton’s biennial Community Service Day, a program started to help Milton students see the world beyond the “Milton bubble,” went off without a hitch. In lieu of classes, the entire school participated for about three hours in a variety of service-oriented activities. Projects ranged from putting on a field day for a Boston public school to doing maintenance work at Mujeres Unidas en Acción, an organization helping low-income Latina women with their educational needs. A total of forty-four sites benefited from the enthusiasm and selflessness that 837 Milton students and faculty brought to each location, and the people at the sites were not the only ones to benefit from Community Service Day: Milton students responded just as positively to serving as the sites did to being helped.

In my thirteen years at Milton, I have found that, on the whole, black and white (and Asian and Hispanic) students recognize the merits of each culture and work towards the most accepting social structure possible. Outside of the brick and ivy, however, the race puzzle does not fit together as snugly as it does here. For me, Community Service Day held an unexpected – and yet very important – glimpse into the world beyond the Milton bubble.

Karen, a first grader from a Boston public elementary school, helped to remind me that, despite the leaps and bounds we have made in the past few decades, we still have a long way to go as a society. At the field day held on Milton’s campus, I was Karen’s host student, and when Karen decided that she wanted to get her face painted, I thought nothing of it. She forewent the traditional hearts, balloons, and cats for something more dramatic – and more disheartening: she painted her face entirely white because she believed she was more beautiful white than black. Her lips and eyebrows weren’t even safe from the thick white paint. As articulate and thoughtful as Milton students are, neither I nor my friends could piece together a proper response to Karen’s actions. In retrospect, we should have professed over and over again how beautiful she already was as a young African-American girl, but at the time, we were struck dumb – floored by her shame.

In the weeks since Community Service Day, the story of Karen has circulated around Milton’s campus and has incited many necessary conversations. For me – and for all who witnessed Karen’s attempt to disguise her true self – Community Service Day served its purpose: the Milton bubble fell away and in its place stood a host of issues that we as a community still need to face head-on.

[BACK TO NEWSLETTER]