Service and Stewardship

Local solutions to local problems.

THOUGH POMFRET IS GLOBAL IN REACH, our Service and Stewardship program is intensely local. Our approach is rooted in the idea that changing the world begins and ends with taking care of the people and places around us. In our case, this means Northeastern Connecticut — the cities and towns, the woods and hills, of Pomfret, Woodstock, Thompson, Brooklyn, Hampton, and Putnam.

At Pomfret, we believe community and conservation are deeply intertwined. You cannot have healthy communities without a healthy planet, and vice versa. Through this program, Pomfret students form the values and strength of character they will need to lead lives of civic engagement and social responsibility as adults.

Community

Through the Community Initiative, we care for the people and communities that make the Quiet Corner a special place to live, learn, and work. Students who participate in this initiative can expect to develop a toolbox of social service skills that they can take back home to their own cities and towns.

Conservation

Through the Conservation Initiative, we care for the plants, animals, habitats, and ecosystems that sustain and nourish us. Students who participate in this initiative can expect to cultivate these stewardship skills on our 500-acre campus and then apply them to off-campus projects in the surrounding area.

Programs

Service and stewardship opportunities are woven into the fabric of school life here at Pomfret, expressed in a variety of contexts, including days of service, fundraising drives, classes, independent studies, travel programs, and projects. Here are just a few of the many ways service and stewardship opportunities show up.

Pomfret Power Packs

Pomfret Power Packs is a student-driven program that delivers bags of groceries to local school children (and their families) who are experiencing food insecurity. The program, which is located in our on-campus food pantry, was founded in 2018 by students in Pomfret's Topics in Food Insecurity class. It supports an average of forty families per year. “Pomfret Power Packs provide an invaluable service to families in need of a helping hand,” said Pomfret Community School Principal Susan Imschweiler. “It provides a bridge between Fridays and Mondays to keep little bellies full."

Empty Bowls

Empty Bowls is a grassroots movement by artists and crafts people in cities and towns around the world to raise money for food-related charities. At Pomfret, students craft more than 100 bowls to sell at an annual fundraiser. In addition to pottery, students sell raffle tickets for baskets, canvas totes, and baked goods. Each year, this annual soup-and-ice-cream dinner raises more than $2,000 for food-insecure families in Northeastern Connecticut.

Cinderella Project

The Cinderella Project is a loosely affiliated network of volunteer chapters that works to provide students with attire for important high school events. At Pomfret, the chapter focuses primarily on collecting second-hand prom dresses. The pop-up boutique, founded by Candy Vorasadhit ’20, donates more than three hundred dresses to local high school students every year. Students and faculty work with the non-profit TEEG to hold the dress giveaway.

Thrift Store

The Pomfret School Thrift Store, located in the Main House, houses gently used clothes donated by Pomfret students and employees. Today, two student leaders and six student volunteers curate and price the collection. The store is open during select hours during the school year. All proceeds are donated to CT Alive. Emporia Meng ’17 was inspired to start the store after interning at the ARC Emporium in nearby Woodstock.

Days of Service

Partners

A defining characteristic of this program is the strong partnerships we have forged with local social service agencies and environmental organizations. These include The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp founded by actor Paul Newman and the Yale-Myers Forest managed by the Yale School of the Environment. Our partners benefit from the energy, ideas, and labor of our students. In turn, our students build transferable skills and gain valuable work experience while serving others.

Hole in the Wall Gang Camp

The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp was founded in 1988 by Paul Newman to give children with serious illnesses the chance to “raise a little hell.” Through a variety of year-round programs offered onsite, in hospitals and clinics, and right in camper homes and communities, the organization is dedicated to providing “a different kind of healing” to seriously ill children and their families, free of charge. The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp is located in nearby Ashford, CT.

Yale Forest

Yale-Myers Forest is Yale's largest landholding, encompassing 7,840 acres (3,213 hectares) in the towns of Ashford, Eastford, Union, and Woodstock, Connecticut. Yale-Myers Forest receives the most activity in terms of education, research, and harvesting operations of all the forests within the School Forest System. The Yale School of the Environment also engages in extensive outreach in the communities surrounding the forest through the Quiet Corner Initiative.

TEEG

Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group is a small grassroots non-profit social service agency located in North Grosvenordale, CT. Its mission is to create a safe place for children to play and to foster self-help. TEEG believes that the quality of their service rests on two things: compassion for those who seek our service, and accountability to those who fund the programs.