Pictured above, left to right: Jesuit's Christian Service directors and associate directors, past and present: Greg Moore ’84 (director, 1992-2005); Emily Schmidt (associate director, 2021-present); Andrea Casey ’97 (associate director, 2012-19; director, 2019-present); Scott Powers (director, 2005-2019); and Mike Hughes ’79 (director, 1985-1992). All of our former directors continue to serve on campus!
Jesuit High School launched its formal Christian Service Program 40 years ago. The program aimed to offer students a real-world experience of being in relationship with people on the margins of society. The 65-hour service commitment became a graduation requirement, reflecting the importance of service to one’s community.
Since 1985, Jesuit has established long-term partnerships with local, regional and international agencies, many of which still thrive today. Overnight camps for people with disabilities like Easterseals Camp Stand By Me, Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp, and Upward Bound Camp continue to draw JHS students in large numbers. Newer summer day camps for youth with disabilities like Camp Yakety Yak and Bustin Barriers have emerged and consistently attract students. Many long-term relationships with local assisted living communities like Raleigh Hills Assisted Living, Marquis Autumn Hills, Cedar Sinai, and West Hills Village continue to flourish.
As student interest in cross-cultural engagement has grown, so have Jesuit’s service immersion offerings. Jesuit has partnered with various ministries and agencies to offer intensive service experiences, both domestically and internationally, over the past 40 years. Early immersion trips included The Portland Plunge in downtown Portland’s “Skid Row” area, and Los Embajadores in the migrant farmworker communities of Tijuana, Mexico. International opportunities expanded in the 2000s, including partnerships with Courts for Kids in developing countries like the Dominican Republic and Guatemala and the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, Mexico.
Another integral piece of Jesuit’s service initiatives – and the only one that the entire school participates in – is the annual Food Drive. Now in its 56th year, students spend weeks collecting items, canvassing and fundraising at Christmas time. Last December, they delivered food to around 350 local families and area food banks.
History
The program’s roots trace back to a senior service elective in the 1970s. Recognizing the potential for broader impact and with input from other Jesuit schools, the administration tasked Mike Hughes ’79 with starting the Christian Service program in 1985. Mike was a theology teacher at Jesuit and had taken the service elective as a student.
From the start, students were required to complete 65 hours of service work, track their experience in a journal and write a final paper. They also needed to work in relationship with marginalized people. The Peace & Justice course, introduced in 1993, added a classroom component where students examined injustices through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching.
Over the years, the program expanded to include service-learning projects for freshmen and sophomores and participation in the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, the nation’s largest annual Catholic social justice gathering and advocacy day in Washington, D.C.
In 2019, Andrea Casey ’97, who had served as an associate director with Scott Powers, was named director of the newly branded Arrupe Center for Justice, an umbrella for Christian Service, ecological justice and global networking. Emily Schmidt joined as associate director in 2021.
In recent years, the Arrupe Center has expanded partnerships with other Jesuit ministries and high schools in the Jesuits West Province, resulting in more opportunities for students to participate in social justice advocacy.
Though the program has evolved over 40 years, the mission remains the same: to help students reflect on their service, understand systemic injustices, and inspire them to work toward a more just society. “You never know how these experiences might resonate and steer students later in life,” said Casey.
To read the full article about the history and impact of the Christian Service program that ran in the 2024 Gratitude Report, click here.