Service & Justice

At Notre Dame Prep, our service and justice programs compliment our academic curriculum and are driven by two key goals: addressing the immediate needs of marginalized communities and challenging the systems that perpetuate injustice on a local and global scale. We provide age-appropriate service opportunities for every grade level and offer an abundance of social service clubs and activities. Through these experiences, students gain a deeper understanding of charity and justice, foster compassion, cultivate leadership skills, and develop a strong sense of responsibility.

Defining Service and Justice

Direct service, or charity, is an immediate response to suffering and can address individual needs, such as poverty, medical or educational needs, and homelessness. Justice, or social change, is rooted in advocacy work that seeks to change systemic, structural, or institutional constructs, such as politics and corporate practices.

Both service and justice work are rooted in the Gospel and both are integral to NDP’s philosophy and the charism of the school’s founding order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Interwoven into the school’s academic and spiritual environment, service and justice activities empower our students to become women who transform the world.

Service Work at NDP

Our vibrant service program is rooted in the mission of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the school's founding order. All NDP community members, including our students, families, faculty, staff, and alumnae, have the opportunity to be involved directly with marginalized communities in Baltimore and beyond. Service learning has been a visible tradition at NDP since the 1930s when the Sodality and Mission Club organized service activities. The current community service requirement for seniors has been in place since 1975, making it the longest-running service requirement curriculum in the region.

Community service infuses the lives of NDP students, beginning in Middle Level and running through Upper Level. A solid foundation of service learning is built on in-house and off-campus projects and reflection experiences that are developmentally appropriate. During their years at NDP, students develop a life-long attitude toward service.

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Social Service Organizations & Clubs

CCAP (Christian Community Awareness Program)
CCAP is a school organization, like the Student Council and the Athletic Association, dedicated to serving the community. The group sponsors the Red Cross Blood Drive; the Penny Queen fundraiser; the Head Start Christmas Party; the CCAP dance in the fall for grade 9 & 10 students; and Pasta for the Philippines. There is one representative from each homeroom, as well as At-Large grade representatives. Meetings are held about once a month.

Club Umoja
Started in 2004, Club Umoja serves as an extension of the Camp Umoja program in the summer by organizing outreach programs for Camp Umoja children both at NDP and in the community. The mission of Club Umoja is to foster ongoing relationships with children from Camp Umoja through programs with Baltimore public housing developments. We strive to instill a love of learning and promote personal growth in the children. In addition, Club Umoja exists to educate the NDP community as it increases our awareness of urban issues affecting Baltimore’s youth. In the process of achieving these goals, we hope to make the experience enjoyable for all involved. This club provides NDP students with continual interaction with the children of Baltimore City Public Housing. Through monthly parties and afterschool tutoring, all students participate in the act of building lifelong relationships and embracing unity. The club also hosts an annual “Urban Forum” to discuss issues that affect Baltimore City’s children.

Doctors Without Borders
This club will educate students about the different health issues around the world and how we can make an impact. The NDP club is an official club of the international organization.

Dress Swap
The Dress Swap seeks to reduce the NDP community's reliance and consumption of fast fashion through the collection and distribution of secondhand dresses from within the NDP community, keeping these dresses that otherwise might be only worn once in circulation and giving the dresses another chance to dance! The club gathers dresses from the NDP community and host a swap/shop event for the student body, to encourage NDP girls to make secondhand their first choice.

Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is a service group that participates in local renovations and home builds once a month for the Susquehanna Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, while also raising awareness about affordable housing in our local area.

I.M.P.A.C.T
I.M.P.A.C.T. is an organization that oversees non-direct service opportunities on campus.

Mell's Club
Mell's Club travels weekly to local elementary schools to read to kids and help them with their homework.

Operation Smile
Operation Smile is a group that gathers to make crafts for children with Cleft Palate Syndrome.

Project Care
This club meets a few times each semester to make cards for children who are hospitalized.

Rafiki
Rafiki is an after-school program which brings young women with developmental disabilities from the community and our NDP students together for a social club. The group meets weekly to enjoy, crafts, games, sports and various activities that foster relationships. Rafiki is a Swahili word meaning “friend” and that is just what is developed with this club.

Refugee Youth Project (RYP)
The Refugee Youth Project provides weekly tutoring and mentoring for refugee children in Baltimore City. NDP students attend training and are able to visit Moravia Park Elementary School twice per week to tutor children who recently arrived in the United States.

Friends in Faith/Saturday Socials
One Saturday every month we meet either at NDP or Loyola to spend time with adults with disabilities to give them a Saturday night activity to participate in. This night is filled with food, crafts, service activities, faith sharing, gym games, music, and more!

ShareBaby
The purpose of this club is to raise awareness about a lack of baby/young child supplies for homeless families. We host donation drives would like to organize a once-a-quarter group opportunity to volunteer at ShareBaby. NDP is part of the regional organization.

Special Olympics Club
Special Olympics Club brings attention to local Special Olympics events and aims to provide volunteers for these events. NDP is part of the national organization.

Travis Manion Foundation Club
Based on the words of fallen hero Travis Manion, "if not me, then who...," the Travis Manion Foundation Club shares stories of real people who exemplify great character and leadership. CDM Mentors demonstrate what it means to live the "If Not Me, Then Who..." ethos, and then challenge students to do the same. NDP is an official club of the National organization.

Ukeladies
The Ukeladies is a band of students dedicated to spreading the fun and enjoyment of ukulele music. The group performs at area nursing homes, as well as at NDP special events such as Open House. Previous experience is not necessary. All that is needed is an appreciation of this four-stringed instrument and a willingness to learn and have fun.

Wagmore Club
The purpose of the club is to create dog and cat toys with old t-shirts and donate them to the SPCA. The club also helps organize an SPCA cat and dog food and supply drive during Catholic Schools Week.
Social Service Activities & Traditions

Christmas Families
During the season of Advent, each Advisory supports a local Baltimore family experiencing material poverty by providing Christmas gifts and grocery gift cards. In collecting gifts, creating decorations, and learning about the family, the students connect with others, develop a heightened awareness of poverty, and share a bit of Christmas spirit!

Coffee House
Each spring, NDP hosts a Coffee House, a night of local music to raise funds for college scholarships for students from our sister community. This fund was started by recent alumnae who wanted to have their Salvadoran peers enjoy the same opportunities they have.

Dinner with our Elders
Started in 1978, Dinner with our Elders is NDP’s oldest service tradition in which the school hosts more than 200 low-income seniors for a Sunday-afternoon turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Students serve the tables and students, faculty, staff, and parents help prepare the meal. The NDP Jazz ensemble entertains in addition to our guests who often perform songs and recite poetry.

Pasta for the Philippines
Pasta for the Philippines was started in 1993 by former faculty member Jeff Goethals and his wife, Fely, who was born and raised in the Philippines. Mrs. Goethals connected NDP with the St. Louis School in Baguio City, Philippines, where proceeds from this event go to support their nutrition program.

Penny Queen
Penny Queen is a weeklong competition between the high school grades to see who can raise the most money, which funds Camp Umoja, the Josanna Abromaitis Service Endowment, and scholarships for children attending school in NDP’s sister community in El Salvador. A Penny Queen is elected from each grade to perform crazy stunts and hold unique fundraisers. This tradition is more than 30 years old.

Stone Soup Day
Stone Soup Day is an NDP tradition where the entire community comes together to prepare, serve, and a simple, common meal of bread and soup. A speaker from an outside organization educates about the needs of people living in material poverty and other social justice issues with proceeds from soup sales going to support their charity.
Social Service Summer Camps

Camp Umoja
Camp Umoja is a summer day camp for children from Baltimore City Public Housing. Since its beginning in 1985, children between the ages of 6 and 11 have attended. Located at Notre Dame Preparatory School in Towson, Maryland, the camp offers daily Red Cross certified swimming lessons, arts and crafts, and a tutoring program. Volunteer counselors from Notre Dame Prep and local boy's schools provide the campers with close supervision in a caring atmosphere. Our key to success is the one-on-one attention that our counselors give to the children. Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili, has special meaning for the camp. At Camp Umoja, high school students and young children together. In that setting, the counselors come to recognize the value of direct service. The young campers gain many important skills through tutoring, arts and crafts, and swimming. They also grow from the recognition that their counselors care deeply about them. Seeking to continue their relationships with their campers throughout the year, NDP students formed Club Umoja.

First Fruits Farm
During the month of July, NDP students, faculty, and staff serve as farmhands for a week at First Fruits Farm in Freeland, MD. Since 2011, NDP has assisted in harvesting produce that is donated to area soup kitchens, food pantries, and nonprofits. Community members have harvested onions, zucchini, cabbage, tomatoes, and so much more to support this long-standing and wonderful nonprofit partner.

Sisters Academy Summer Camp
Started in 2005, the Sisters Academy Summer Camp is a day camp hosted on Notre Dame Prep's campus, which offers sports and fitness opportunities for the students of Sisters Academy of Baltimore, a Catholic, community-centered middle school, that educates girls from families of limited economic means, in southwest Baltimore. Notre Dame Prep students volunteer as counselors at the camp, offering support, encouragement, and friendship with these middle school students and maintain their relationship with the students throughout the following school year.
Social Service Trips

Mississippi
Since the early 1990s, NDP has sent a group of seniors on a week long-trip to serve lower-income families in the Deep South around Easter. We work in Starkville, Mississippi, with their local Habitat for Humanity chapter, assisting families in their dreams of owning a good home. We sleep at the local Boy Scout camp and dinners and lunches are provided by local churches that host us in the evenings. We also participate in local activities such as going out to the Mississippi State baseball game. NDP is the only high school to participate in this program, known as the Collegiate Challenge.

Virginia
Started in 2004, the Virginia Habitat for Humanity Trip with Calvert Hall provides students from NDP and CHC the opportunity to get to know one another while providing a meaningful service to a family on the rural eastern shore of Virginia. Students often work together to make their meal though some are generously donated by local church groups. In the evenings there will be time for recreation and reflection on the day’s experiences, and we take a recreational day at Virginia Beach mid-week.

Justice Work at NDP

The Social Service curriculum at Notre Dame Preparatory School moves students from acts of charity to works of justice. Through service learning, students are able to combine NDP's mission tenets of academic excellence with direct service.

The Social Service Office oversees the service-learning initiative at NDP. This innovative educational paradigm integrates the graduation service requirement into pre-existing curricula to create a truly 21st-century classroom experience. NDP currently offers service-learning courses in three disciplines through the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) Program: AP Environmental Science, AP Human Geography, and AP Studio Art.

Topics that are addressed with students include:

- - How Charity is different from Justice.
  - How to recognize the Kingdom of God right here!
  - Why Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is the ‘best-kept secret in the Catholic Church.’
  - How Gospel Values and the Principles of Catholic Social Teaching shine a new light on current political, economic and social issues.
  - How CST offers strategic and systemic solutions for social sin.
  - How to become an advocate for the poor and marginalized of society.
  - Educational resources for the classroom.
  - Practical resources for purchasing and investment.
  - The School Sisters of Notre Dame local, national and global mission.
  - Issue-specific meditations and prayers.
  - Action Alerts and many ways that you can get involved in Building The Kingdom of God!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commitments

As a Catholic, independent school, Notre Dame Preparatory School is rooted in the Gospel and Catholic Social Teaching. The life and spirit of the School Sisters of Notre Dame permeate all aspects of NDP and its community. This spiritual heritage calls us and requires our action to nurture in all ways a community of one mind and one heart. In this spirit, NDP presents Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commitments, which were spearheaded by NDP’s Anti-Racism Task Force called STRIVE (Sustaining Transformation: Racial Inclusion, Value, and Equity), approved by NDP’s Board of Trustees, and adopted by the school in January 2021. These commitments are an expression of NDP's Catholic identity and serve as a touchstone for all our work promoting justice and equality.