Roxbury Latin kicked off its annual service drive in Hall on Tuesday, 20 October, with the launch of the annual all-School fundraiser and an additional initiative: a Thanksgiving food drive led by Class I. The day before, Classes V and VI spent a service morning doing general maintenance at two sites—Class V to Hale Reservation (Robert Sever Hale, RL 1887 and a Trustee) and Class VI to the ancient cemetery in Dudley Square, the burial site of our Founder. (See photos here.)

The School-wide fundraiser will support a scholarship at the Maru a Pula School in Botswana (visited by seniors Logan Warshaw and Jake Rooney over the summer) and Medicines for Humanity, founded by Tim Bilodeau ’68. Food donated by the RL community for the food drive will be gathered and distributed as care packages to families in need by Class I in time for Thanksgiving.

RL prioritizes service as a vital component of who we are. While the fundraiser and the food drive will wrap up in just two weeks, our Class-by-Class service work and our collaborative projects are carried out over the full academic year. To help support the service programs, a Student Leadership Board has been established. Co-presidents Liam McDonough I and Brendan McInerney I and co-vice presidents Aidan Burke II and Jacob Morris II, along with each Class Service Rep, will be especially busy over the next couple of weeks.

In the short time since the start of term Class VI boys covered a lot of territory. Two field trips—the traditional sixie trip to Beaver Brook and an excursion to the Harvard Museum of Natural History—took them way off campus. The third was a trek in their own back yard: the boys ventured into the RL woods to identify and map the flora as part of a unit of their Natural Design course.

Click these links for photos from all three days:

Beaver Brook

Harvard Museum of Natural History

Natural Design Class

The School marked the Jewish High Holy Days in Hall on 10 September. Our guest speaker was Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz, of Temple Emanuel in Newton, who illuminated the traditions of the Jewish faith surrounding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.It is Roxbury Latin’s mission to gather all kinds of boys committed to understanding and celebrating differences, including differences of faith, and to expose them to a broad and deep wellspring of knowledge. In the spirit of this mission we seek opportunities to hear from witnesses to these different faith traditions so that our own journeys toward meaning and fulfillment can be most hopefully informed. We were privileged to welcome Rabbi Gardenswartz on this occasion.

Rabbi Gardenswartz is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and practiced civil litigation law from 1986 to 1993 with the Boston law firm of Goulston & Storrs. In 1993 he entered the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he won the Stephen Henry Shefrin Memorial Prize and The Cyrus Adler Prize. He has served Temple Emmanuel for the past 18 years.

The Boston Globe recently highlighted Joe Caruso ‘61 and his amiable investing approach, which has helped support numerous nascent publicly traded companies.

Read more on Joe’s investing nature in the Boston Globe article here.

On Wednesday, 2 September, boys from Classes II, III, and IV participated in class outings for team building and camraderie.

Class IV held its annual event—an after-school excursion to Ron’s Bowling & Gourmet Ice Cream in Hyde Park—for a little competition and confection. The goal of the trip is to help build class spirit and integrate the eleven new boys into the group. Class III took their third annual trip to Camp Burgess in Sandwich where they enjoyed a combination of high- and low-rope challenges, zip line and canoe race fun, and some down time with each other to swim and play. The day serves to bring the class together through recreation, learn more about each other, and think about how the challenges offered to them on this trip apply to their experiences at Roxbury Latin and beyond.

Class II’s 54 boys along with five faculty members spent their day at Hale Reservation in Westwood, where the organized games and challenges highlighted the Class II theme of leadership and responsibility. The day included the “leap of faith” high ropes exercise, blind sword fighting, and races, and ended with a group reflection about the importance of team-building, individual buy-in, and the importance of communication. Hale Reservation is one of RL’s favorite destinations, a magnificent public property originally donated to the Boy Scouts by Robert Sever Hale, RL Class of 1887. (See photos from all three outings)