Kiley R. ’19 slides onto the ice with confidence. The rising four-year senior is a high honors, tri-sport, student-athlete who captains the Girls’ Varsity Hockey team and is the 2018 Ritchie Hockey Foundation Scholarship recipient. Kiley looks for opportunities outside of her comfort zone. This year she says, her friends encouraged her as she took the leap on stage and moved beyond taking classes in vocal ensemble and jumped into Fiddler on the Roof. Ask those who know her and they’ll say Kiley is best described as a student who follows her curiosity. Curiosity about child hunger and food insecurity led Kiley to form and lead the Food Justice Service Learning Group for the 2018-2019 academic year.
“I’m really passionate about learning and understanding the issue of hunger and how I can help those impacted by hunger. I utilized service learning to break out my passion and I created the group called Food Justice. I think it’s really important to put yourself into service learning because it really helped me develop as a leader. It helps your public speaking skills, your development as a person and your ability to see the world from different perspectives.”
Kiley’s advice to incoming students is simply to “join the group you are most passionate about so you can really make a difference.”
The difference Kiley is making extends into the summer. This summer so far her service learning group planned, planted, and maintained a garden. Ready to be harvested when students return in September, the garden is a teaching laboratory for the school. Lessons cultivated in the teaching garden can help plan a community garden plot in the town and vegetables can be donated to the local food pantry. At The Winchendon School, community matters and Kiley’s service learning group, Food Justice is one way we can strengthen our community.
