Community Service Is What Takoma Academy Does!

Story by Shaun Robinson

Twice a year, Takoma Academy (TA) students and faculty spend a Friday participating in community service themed, “Spread Love Day.” Last fall, they spent the day serving their community at multiple locations in the Washington metropolitan area. About 30 students walked a 4.5-mile section of the Sligo Creek trail in Takoma Park, Md., collecting and disposing of trash to help maintain the park’s beauty and cleanliness. Other students aided the Washington Brazilian church in College Park, Md., by performing minor repairs and painting its picnic tables. Another group of students helped at the Sligo church in Takoma Park, Md., by clearing items from offices and moving A/V equipment into the church’s media room. Still, members from the BELOVE church in Washington, D.C., arranged an opportunity for students to visit the Sasha Bruce Home where they prepared food for those experiencing homelessness and later wrote letters of encouragement to the residents that services at-risk youth. More community service was conducted at the Washington Adventist University’s Student Activity Center in Takoma Park, Md., by tidying up the facility and at Adventist Community Services of Greater Washington in Silver Spring, Md., by organizing clothes for those in need.

“Community service is an important part of Christian education because we sometimes forget who we follow—Jesus, a man who served others,” says Faith Zack-Funes (’27). “As Christians, we have to pour in the cups of others and have faith the Lord will provide for us, like it says in Philippians 2:3–4.”

One of TA’s guiding missions is “to develop Christian principles of love by promoting respect for, concern for and service to others.” The “Spread Love Day” is one opportunity for the entire student body to dedicate their time and energy in service to the community, say staff.

Robert Machado, school chaplain and Bible teacher, spends countless hours making connections and arranging service opportunities twice a year. “I believe community service is essential to education because it is in the ‘doing’ that we ‘become,’” he says. “Biblical wisdom is not simply knowledge and theory but practical experience that transforms the mind and heart. As students serve, their attitudes are molded, they realize that living for oneself is not the goal, but living for others as our Lord Jesus did is the true objective. The hope for Christian education, in my opinion, is not to simply see students become proficient in a subject or to simply get good grades, but to go beyond the classroom where they can find a career where they can passionately serve others.”