Students Participate in Service Retreat with Food Insecurity Focus

The weekend before Thanksgiving, service club Maroon Key hosted a community service retreat for four faculty and 16 students in Hartford, CT. The retreat focused on food insecurity, providing many opportunities for the group of Hopkins middle and senior schoolers to volunteer and bond.

The group started their journey at the Connecticut Foodshare in Wallingford, where they sorted tomatoes for donation the next day. Next they headed north toward Hartford and learned more about combating food insecurity systematically at The Grocery on Broad, a community grocery store that offers discounts for customers with lower incomes, and on-the-job culinary training.

The next morning, the group volunteered at Union Baptist Church, handing out over 100 boxes of food and turkeys for Thanksgiving. Their last stop was Levo International, where they helped build hydroponic farming structures and learned about sustainable farming and food deserts. They ended the day baking pies to donate, playing Just Dance, and preparing for a student-run breakfast the next morning!

The immersive service retreat offered the students and faculty opportunities for a lot of great discussions and a ton of fun.