Community service plays prominent role at Doane Academy

Community service wasn't always high on Ryan Dronson's list of priorities. But since he enrolled at the college preparatory Doane Academy in Burlington City, his outlook has changed.

"It's a small school, you know everyone, and a lot of people are involved," said the 17-year-old junior from Haddonfield, who spent the Martin Luther King holiday playing basketball with foster children in the school's gymnasium.

Around the region yesterday, volunteers honored the late civil-rights leader by participating in a variety of projects. But at Doane Academy, a 173-year-old school with sweeping views of the Delaware River, community service plays a prominent role in school life.

"While it's not required, around 75 percent of our students participate in a significant service project in the course of the school year," said John McGee, headmaster at Doane, which has students from prekindergarten through high school and graduates about 20 a year. "Over the last seven or eight years, we've shifted a little bit to where character and leadership are considered just as important as academics."

Martin Luther King Day has become the most important date on Doane's community-service calendar.

"I feel especially obligated today," said Tyrees Smith, 16, a junior. "Helping out like this, you feel a certain sense of accomplishment. You feel you've served your community and God."

After an inspirational talk by the pastor of Burlington's Restoration Station Christian Fellowship, students spread across the county. In Burlington City, they raked leaves at John F. Kennedy Park and visited seniors at the Masonic Home in Burlington City. They cleaned up a historic cemetery in Burlington Township and they played and ate lunch with foster children at the school.

"This is really great of them. We don't really get invited to places like this very often," said Gwen Cantwell, a social worker with Families Living in Extreme Stress, a New Jersey nonprofit that works with foster children. The group brought about 30 kids to Doane, which though not explicitly church-affiliated is a member of the National Association of Episcopal Schools.

Administrators at Doane, where the high school tuition is about $15,000 a year, began the campaign to get students involved in community service after observing a rise of poverty and related social problems in the area, McGee said.

"The need has changed significantly in my lifetime," he said. "It's not as easy as just having your nice little house in the suburbs anymore. You're going to have to invest in your community."

Volunteerism extends into the lower grades, to children who may have little understanding of life in inner-city Burlington City or Camden but who have made community service a popular after-school activity.

Leah Simpson, 11, a sixth grader, is a competitive snowboarder who works with the mentally disabled through her church, Fellowship Alliance Chapel in Medford. After asking a teacher about volunteering with the Special Olympics, Simpson enthusiastically showed a foster child around the school yesterday.

"I love kids, I guess," she said. "Sometimes, I feel really bad" for the foster children. "I hope they get adopted and get good parents."

That level of commitment is unusual for a student Simpson's age, said Mary Ann Broboski, a teacher at the school. Compared to what she saw as a high school student and later as a teacher in Philadelphia, the participation in community service at Doane seems "almost too good to be true," Broboski said.

"But we're such a small school, why wouldn't you want to join in? It's what the kids are talking about when they come to class on Monday," she said.