Community Involvement

Wildwood’s elementary Community Involvement program engages students in projects and partnerships that relate to classroom learning and respond to a real need, while nurturing children’s expanding understanding of the world around them.

Service learning projects follow coursework. For example, when kindergarten and 1st grade students dive into the social studies theme of “Home and Habitats,” they address homelessness and provide support for the local homeless population through food and supply drives. When 2nd graders study “Our Coastal Community,” they explore the Ballona Wetlands and find ways to aid the migration of butterflies and birds. In 3rd-5th grades, students work with topics such as hunger, aid for our troops and veterans, and children with disabilities. By the time today’s kindergarteners progress to middle school, they will have had six years of diverse service experience in practicing the Life Skills of Responsibility, Organizing, Problem Solving, and Tolerance. 

In middle school, Community Involvement is incorporated into the Advisory program. In 6th grade, students focus their community involvement on the environment by adopting a beach through the nonprofit organization Heal the Bay. They work together to identify threats to the beach and habitat while cleaning the area, building their friendships and connections with each other while strengthening their ties to our greater community.

Students in 7th and 8th grades focus on intergenerational community involvement, making connections with residents of elder-care facilities near campus. Students read, play games, perform, and engage elders in conversation about their personal histories and their own connections to our shared neighborhood and greater Los Angeles.

Community Involvement is deeply embedded into the upper school experience. So much so, in fact, that it is a graduation requirement, with projects designed both to give back to the larger community and to help students realize their own roles as leaders within our city and world as they launch into life beyond Wildwood. Working with our Director of Community Programs, students identify meaningful projects while also taking part in long-standing partnerships with Los Angeles organizations.