Service with a Smile – Pre-Thanksgiving Partnerships Offer Opportunities for Impact at Home and Abroad

Rutgers Prep was honored to partner again this year with Rise Against Hunger, an international hunger relief non-profit organization, to package 55,080 meals in under three hours on Wednesday, November 16. These meals, which were packed by RPS students in grades 3-12 alongside faculty volunteers, were delivered to the Phillippines to help those in devastated areas fight hunger and malnutrition.

In addition to the herculean meal-packing effort on this service-oriented Wednesday, the School’s youngest community members were also hard at work. Students in Pre-K, JK, and 2nd grade designed cards with well-wishes and hopes of joy for local residents at Bristal Assisted Living in Somerset and for patients at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, while our Kindergarten and 1st graders wrapped utensils to be delivered to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.

Lastly, after the Rise Against Hunger event in the morning, members of Upper School Council delivered more than 1,200 non-perishable food items to the Franklin Food Bank. This was the culmination of the RPS Can Drive, an annual Thanksgiving tradition for students in all grades and adults in the Rutgers Prep community to work together and make a difference in our local community.

There is so much for which to be thankful, and the School is ever grateful to its students for being active, cheerful, and engaged participants in service activities, and to its faculty who create and organize opportunities for our students to make a positive impact, both locally and around the world.