News

By Isabela Supovitz-Aznar

Staff Writer

Junior Sam Lovett-Perkins was very surprised and excited to have received the first Jefferson award to be presented to a student at SLA.

The Jefferson Awards were co-founded by former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and U.S. Senator Robert Taft. It is a program that aknowledges the importance of community service in student life, and applauds and awards teens who give back to their community.

The Award was presented during the most recent Junior Assembly by Sophomore Isabela Supovitz-Aznar and Senior Nikhail James, both of whom heped bring the first Jefferson team to SLA.

Lovett-Perkins has participated in multiple service projects through SLA and BuildOn, including an overseas trip to Mali during spring break.

He says the award was definitely unexpected. “I thought Amanda was going to get it,” Sam said, referring to Junior Amanda Millat, who also participates frequently in community service. When they called his name, “I started thinking, oh my God, what if I have to give a speech!”

Mrs. Siswick, SLA’s guidance counselor who helps manage The Jefferson Awards team, helped coordinate the award, along with Urszula Stankiewicz, who works for the program.

“When I was in high school, we did not have any service clubs, service requirements, nor anybody who taught us the importance of service. None of my peers ever talked about volunteering, nor do I think many of them even considered volunteering,” said Stankiewicz. “I only learned how rewarding volunteer work was when I was in college.”

“I cannot explain how thrilled I was to see such a strong culture of service in so many schools.  It melted my heart to see so many students truly passionate about giving back, both locally and globally.”

The Junior Assembly also featured special guest Michael Cruz from the School District’s Office of Counseling and Promotion Standards. Michael gave a speech about college life, and what the Juniors could do to prepare for college admissions — including joining the Jefferson program.

We hope to see more students joining Jefferson Awards in the new school year!

Photos by Rebecca Rainis and Isabela Supovitz-Aznar, Written By Isabela Supovitz-Aznar.

By Heather Campbell

Staff Writer

This year, Senior Bach Tong has a free ride to college.

For the past three years, one student in each senior class at SLA has won The Gates Millennium Scholars Program scholarship. Tong joins Shareesa Bollers ’10 and Davonte Martin ’11, who were the first two winners.

The scholarship is awarded to 1,000 exemplary minority students each year. The recipients are able to use the scholarship at any university or college that they wish to attend. On top of that, the money is used to cover all academic costs that the students may encounter for the duration of their undergraduate studies.

Bach had first learned about The Gates Millennium Scholarship during his sophomore year. But it was his advisor, Spanish Teacher Melanie Manuel, that nominated him in the fall of 2011, giving him the chance to apply.

The application process for the scholarship had fourteen different extensive steps, including a recommendation and essay questions. Helen Gym, who Tong works with at South Philadelphia High School as a community organizer, provided the recommendation for the application. All components of the scholarship are used for the Advisory Council to better understand each of the applicants.

“I think I wrote at least 15 pages,” Bach commented when asked about the essays. The essay questions were based off of academic capacity, community service and leadership. Each essay had a character limit of around 7000.

Tong definitely felt the crunch as the application due date approached.  “I didn’t think that I could win — the scholarship deadline was the same as lots of other colleges,” Tong admitted.

As a senior, Tong had multiple application deadlines to meet for applying to colleges which he was focusing on during the application process of The Gates Millenium Scholarship. But Tong succeeded in impressing the Advisory Council, one day, he came home and found a big envelope from the scholarship in his mailbox.

“It’s awesome,” commented ILP Coordinator Jeremy Spry.

Tong will be attending Deep Springs College, an alternative two-year college located in California. Deep Springs is actually tuition free, but Tong will rely on the scholarship for his travel costs and other fees.

After that, he is unsure of where his Gates Millenium Scholarship will take him — but he is thrilled to be saving the money.

By Mike Dea and Sammie Beattie

Staff Writers

Recycling has never really occurred at SLA, despite the presence of the iconic blue bins around the building. They’ve always been used as another trash can–until now.

SLA Senior Bear McGrorty decided to change that policy. For his capstone project, McGrorty wanted to make SLA a greener, a more environmentally friendly place for students.

McGrorty got the idea from this through a small, project based school called Greenwoods Charter School, which is located at the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center for Environment Education. The school was started by four mothers, who were very environmentally based.

“There was an emphasis on environmental education and sustainability of systems”, stated McGrorty. It was this prior education in “going green” that inspired McGrorty’s capstone goal.

“At the end of the year, we would do a recycling drive with paper products,” McGrorty explained. “The program would help fund the school.”

When first coming to SLA, McGrorty was faced with something completely different.

“I noticed that there was no recycling program. Attempts had been made by people such as Sky Kalfus (’11), but each fell through.”

Later, McGrorty found out about the Capstone program for seniors and was set on making his Capstone about recycling at SLA. At the start of senior year, he began researching municipal codes and meetings with street departments. McGrorty was faced with a question: How did Philly management (owners of buildings) get away without recycling?

Even though he got little support from corporations, McGrorty kept working on it. He started meeting with Mr. Lehmann and once he got enough information, Lehmann set a meeting with the head of Philly Management, who is in charge of upkeep of the school.

McGrorty then teamed up with Phresh Philadelphia and SLARP, two groups bent on community revitalization, in hopes that the additional support for a recycling program would help to facilitate the change.

He informed Philly management about the benefits of this for both the community and the company. Convinced by McGrorty that a recycling program would have more benefits than costs, Philly Management offered to place five recycling bins throughout the building. However, with negotiation, McGrorty got twenty bins and a dumpster, which comes to four bins per floor if the fourth floor is included.

As all projects, McGrorty was faced with an issue which was getting the word out. He is taking various steps such as weekly advisory memos, a social media campaign, and creating a team-up between SLARP and Phresh Philadelphia, making SLARP a subdivision of Phresh Philadelphia. He has also taken steps to ensure that it will continue after through financial incentive towards future education and ILP. “Maybe find a way of giving incentive to get kids involved in recycling,” says McGrorty.
The hope is that these steps will enable a recycling program to become a sustainable program to better the SLA community.
But McGrorty wants the program to remain dynamic.

“I want to create a model for other schools to base themselves off of,” McGrorty explains. “I want a student to take the idea into their communities or a visitor to bring it to their school. I want to create a model in SLA others look at as a guide to create their own.”