CARE

As a staff member and a parent, I knew that Woodstock students cared, but it took a CARE trip to the Sharp Memorial School for the Blind for me to see Woodstock students in action. CARE is a voluntary, student-led activity focused on helping our community, improving our ecology and teaching our students the importance of service.

While every Woodstock student is required to be involved in 30 hours of CARE a year, they have a plethora of actual activities to choose from.This trip had more than its share of those who needed to add to their required thirty hours, along with my own 12th Grade daughter. Hard as it is to get out of bed and be on time on a Saturday morning, we eventually swung into the imposing iron gates of the Sharp School, with about 120 students and surrounded by beautiful gardens.

The Woodstock students quickly chose activities to partner with the visually handicapped children. True to type, the teenage boys picked sports activities, while the girls went straight to the young children (age 4 and up). It was amazing to watch these teenagers interact with the children, using the colourful play-dough they had thoughtfully brought with them. There were no iPods,iPads,laptops or othertechnology - the objective was just to let as many youngsters climb on your lap as possible and hold their hands while communicating in broken Hindi.We Woodstockers soon began to laugh and smile as much as the children did,to let go of our inhibitions and just play.

Many of our students thought they were going down to Dehradun to help a group of visually impaired kids. Sharing their experiences on the way back, everyone realised that we were the ones who had really benefitted. This is whyWoodstock encourages students to strengthen their community ties, to care for others, to experience learning outside the classroom and to grow to be citizens of the world.The principal of the Sharp school and the school itself deserve full credit for the wonderful caring environment in which these children are learning their skills for life – and teaching our students something important at the same time.