Educational Excellence Since 1912
Hamden Hall Country Day School
Educating students in PreSchool through Grade 12

Creating Greener Communities with Middle School

Middle School students embarked on an outdoor nature and conservation trip as part of their community service initiative. In observance of Earth Day, both seventh and eighth-grade students along with faculty volunteers spent the day creating a greener community in conjunction with Gather New Haven.
 
Gather New Haven is a nonprofit organization committed to protecting the environment and working to restore and preserve areas in New Haven. The organization maintains 80 acres of preserves, manages 50 community gardens, and provides environmental educational programs. 
 
The two classes were separated into groups with seventh-grade cleaning up the Long Wharf Nature Preserve located across from the Sound School and fronting the New Haven Harbor, while eighth-grade spent the afternoon at the urban gardens on Ward Street near Career High School.
 
“Hamden Hall instills the value of giving back and helping others in all its students, and I’m glad to be part of this project today,” said English teacher and Middle School advisor Jill McLeavy. “The students getting really involved in cleaning the debris and wanting to improve the preserve is such a meaningful experience, and they will take away life lessons about giving back.”
 
With an array of pickers and garbage bags in hand, seventh-graders got to work clearing the debris along the nature trails and the marshes. Students looked for all types of waste and refuse around the area and then bagged it up for disposal. The bags were brought back to the Sound School and taken to the dump by workers.
 
In another part of New Haven, eighth-graders were tending to the urban gardens. Using shovels, rakes, and hand shears, the students tended to the garden beds by clearing and moving logs, raking, shoveling dirt, and manipulating the soil to get it ready for planting. The gardens are used and maintained for food harvesting.
 
Following the return to campus, all students met with their advisory groups to discuss the day’s activities.  Director of Middle School Brian Christman noted it was a great day and he was pleased with all the work students got done at both sites.

Our Middle School has long helped out at the community gardens once under the auspices of the New Haven Land Trust. In January 2020, New Haven Farms and the New Haven Land Trust merged into a single organization under the name of Gather New Haven.
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Hamden Hall Country Day School

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Hamden Hall Country Day School is a nurturing and inclusive community with a dynamic learning environment that promotes academic excellence by understanding each child and fostering their individual growth.