Arianna Peper
Editor in Chief
“The key thing is who are the partnerships and how do you connect with organizations for the opportunity,” experiential learning teacher and community connector Patrick Bommarito said about the new Chelsea Center course.
Starting in the 2025-26 school year, the Chelsea Center has introduced a new course titled “Service Learning,” which is an opportunity for students to participate in guided community service through weekly field trips around St. Louis.
Bommarito said, “I essentially work with the students to form partnerships with community organizations in St. Louis and look at the needs of the community. Then we go to a site, visit an organization, meet with their staff, learn about their mission, talk about ways that they rely on volunteers to fit into their goals, and then see what the organization does and then go help them do it.”
For the first six weeks this year, the students participating in the new service learning class partnered with the World Bird Sanctuary, where they learned about the organization’s mission, rehabilitation hospital and received tours. Then students were able to conduct work around removing invasive species like honeysuckle that damage nearby plants with nutrients.
In addition to this, the class has also worked directly with children at the Webster Groves Child Care Center.
Bommarito said, “I want students to learn about the needs of the community and also the other side of it, which is learning about their own interests and what they like and dislike, because it’s an opportunity for them to see if they are interested in doing this work in the future in some way.”
“Maybe we’re working with kids, and some students who had never done that before have really come to like that,” Bommarito added.
On Thursday, Oct. 22, the class participated in a river clean-up with River City Outdoors, and they went on a float on the Missouri River.
Bommarito is also looking to partner with Great Rivers Greenway, which is an organization that plans, builds and maintains networks of greenways, parks and trails.
In addition to this, the class hopes to partner with LifeWise, whose mission is “to help families and individuals achieve economic well-being by providing high-impact, relationship-based programming and by addressing systemic barriers to their success,” according to its website.
Bommarito said, “I would recommend it because it’s for one nontraditional, you get out of the building and learn and understand the needs of the community. You get the opportunity to learn about organizations and your own skills and interests, and how you might use that in the future, no matter what career you choose. There are a lot of skills you can develop through this course.“
Arianna Peper–Editor in Chief
This will be Arianna Peper’s third year on ECHO staff. She made several contributions while taking journalism class her freshman year.
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