For those who still are unfamiliar to the concept of “service learning”, it may help to know where it was first conceived. In a village in Guatemala, a young man from the Peace Corps was given a mission. The children of the village wanted a library, and he was assigned to help them achieve their goal. The man, Zach Laurie, helped the kids in acquiring materials, hiring building designers and workers, and overseeing the construction.

“We started with a bare plot of land,” Laurie said, “We had materials delivered and a lot of the kids did the work themselves.”

Laurie noticed how everyone was able to work together, which he said inspired him.

“It really spoke to me. The kids learned to build something from scratch, make furniture, and also make something from start to finish,” Laurie said.

Laurie came home to the Bay Area with this new idea of working together as a community, and creating an experience out of it. So he, along with Co-Founder Armando Spataro, created an organization called Roots to Branches. Their mission: that every class, in every school in the Bay Area does one thing a year to benefit the community around it.

And so began Piedmont High School’s partnership with Roots to Branches, who will help in the move outward into the community with good deeds in motion. At first the idea was to only have a project for the freshman year, but it has expanded to a full school experience, which, according to Laurie, will hopefully become an integrated system within four years.

“What’s unique about Piedmont are these four issues for each grade,” Laurie said, “There’s a chance to take the idea of these issues and translate them to the real world. We could really build something big.”

This being the first year, the projects will probably be small, like just starting a car, Laurie said.

The next step, now that each grade has its own issue to address, is to brainstorm ideas for how students can make an impact on their community. This job will be assigned to the students.

“We could tell you what to do. But that’s not nearly as meaningful as you saying, ‘this is what I want to do’,” Assistant Principal Anne Dolid said.

Time for the brainstorm is allotted on March 7th when there will be another special schedule. Speakers from Roots to Branches, as well as speakers from several community-based organizations (CBO’s), will help give the students an idea of what they are striving for.

“It could be anything,” Dolid said. “We’re building something from nothing. It’s a pretty huge undertaking. We want to make it our own.”

A tentative hope is that on the morning of Day on the Green, students have the opportunity to go into the community and work, both Laurie and Dolid said.

“It’s a different experience to go out in the community and get your hands dirty, cooperating to create a larger vision,” Laurie said.

Aside from outside projects, another goal is that teachers begin weaving these issues into their curricula.

“This will become part of the culture,” Laurie said. “So it’s not about achieving the grades but about working together. It creates a sense of purpose in going to Piedmont High School.”

Several teachers have already taken this into stride, including science teacher Marna Chamberlain. Several of her ideas include studying the correlation between “food deserts” (areas where liquor stores take the places of grocery stores) and regions with a higher concentration of Type 2 Diabetes with her Anatomy class, which relates back to economic disparity. She also is working to organize a project for the freshmen which involves building solar powered ovens in class and then shipping them off to impoverished towns and villages.

“But we want to be able to call them up later and ask them how they are doing, get feedback, have a relationship,” Chamberlain said.

However, doubts are being expressed by students who have yet to experience the effects of the new system.

“It’s nice to know that my school’s doing something but I don’t feel personally involved,” junior Luke Smith said.

“I’m envisioning class periods where we talk about the issue. But I feel like with discrimination it’ll mostly be in the classroom,” sophomore Lizzie Bjork said. “It’s a more intangible issue than the others.”

Sophomore English teacher Debora Hill has also noticed this problem and has found a way to incorporate the issue of racism and discrimination into the sophomore Media Project. Her idea is to have the students create Public Service Announcements that pertain to some issue of discrimination.

“I’m hoping that students will think outside the box.” Hill said. “We’re talking about 21st Century discrimination which is subtle. Discrimination against learning styles, or extroverts vs. introverts, for example.”

In addition to spreading the word, Hill said that this project may lead to new discoveries for the students.

“My hope is that there will be all types of discrimination that students can discover,” Hill said.

Teachers, parents and students, have contributed to the project as well.

“I hope the kids will be excited when they enter a new year and have new projects that they care about,” Laurie said. “When I think back to high school, there are a lot of things that I don’t remember. But what I do remember are the times we came together and built something. Those experiences stay with you.”