New service hours requirements explained

By Paul Florence and Sage Walker 

This year, multiple changes were made to the Judge service program. You may be asking yourself, ‘Why would they change after being the same for so long?’ 

In a September 17 interview, Ms. Poppe said, “Ms. Coffey and I took some time last year to look at other Catholic schools around the country, and I went to visit two other schools just to see what Christian Service programs looked like at Catholic Schools in our country.” 

There have been some big changes, but the biggest one has been the changes to the hours you have to get between junior and senior year. 

“I think the biggest thing was senior year, it was really tough to get all of those hours in and keep track of them before graduation,” Ms. Poppe said. “We saw that other schools were giving their students more time, that they were giving them between junior and senior year to do their hours, which is why we moved to that model as well.” 

These new changes will make it easier and more available for students to do service. 

When we asked what nonprofit organizations students were allowed to work at, Ms. Poppe responded, “Really anything that is pre-approved by our service department and goes along with Catholic social teaching.”

She then went on to explain how students chose the nonprofits they work at.“Whatever they think is going to help them grow and become a better person.” 

She added that this change entailed that you could not do service hours at places such as a hospital where a student would just be filing paperwork. She wants students’ service to be in direct contact with the poor and marginalized in our community. 

“When we look at our program, realize that it’s not just a service program, it’s a Christian service program. A Christian service program means that we model our actions after Christ, and Christ ministered to the people when he was here on earth. So those 40 hours between junior and senior year have to be in direct contact with people who kind of live on the outside of society. 

“These are the people we really want you to work with, so that you can understand their lives and their needs and ways that you can help them.”