“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Giving Back
Sometimes it just feels like all you do is take, take, take. You take your parents’ car to get to practice. You take the school’s laptop so you can do your homework. You even take the biggest slice of pizza because, man, you’re hungry! And yet, it feels really good to give back and to pay it forward but sometimes you don’t know how. Lucky for you, at New Millennium Secondary School (NMSS), we’ve built giving right into our curriculum.
Community service, or service learning, is a very important part of our tuition-free public high school’s community engagement. Volunteering in a meaningful way gives you valuable experience that you can’t learn from your academic studies alone, especially in learning how to work as a team, problem solving, and developing a strong work ethic. The benefits of volunteering on a community service project are so strong that both colleges and employers look for it. For a general diploma at NMSS, we require 75 hours before graduation, or for a Millennium Scholar diploma, we ask for 100 hours. Either of these give you plenty of time to take part in new and recurring projects throughout the year.
What Can I Do?
There are many ways to give back at our engaged high school. Join an established program we host, like our ThanksGIVEaway that provides food and goods for our community. We (teachers, staff, and students) work together to set up stations at our school with hot “to-go” meals from Chic-Fil-A, donated canned goods, lightly used clothing and new hygiene products. Lots of organizing, planning, and help is needed to make this program a success and students learn as much as they give.
You can also organize your own project like a couple of our students did with a recent Red Cross Blood Drive. They scheduled a Red Cross bus to come to the school campus where students and staff donated blood, a most worthy community cause! Bonus: students who gave blood received community service credits too! Win-win-win!
More of an entertainer and less of an organizing mastermind? No problem. Give of your time and talents at our Holiday Showcase, a night where we share with our community our outstanding performance skills!
No Giving is Too Small
We have big community service projects but we also have smaller ways to make an impact at our public high school. For one, we have a Warrior pantry on our campus that we stock and keep organized with canned goods and hygiene items which students help keep up and running. During the pandemic, students came up with thoughtful ways to help family and friends from the isolation of their homes. And we always need a helpful hand in our “Command Center” office where we get so much done but also need so. much. help!
How can you give back to your community? Let us help. Our dynamic tuition-free public high school is all about our community and giving back. Call us at 310-999-6162 and talk to one of our friendly staff, or fill out an application and join our Warrior team!
About NMSS
The New Millennium Secondary School (NMSS) is a charter high school in Gardena, CA committed to preparing students to become life-long learners and dynamic leaders in the competitive 21st century. NMSS was created to address the rising global competitive environment for talent. Our students enjoy a small school education with big school sports and accredited community college classes. Enroll your student today.
