This fall, the Lower School participated in a food drive to support the CitySquare food pantry, collecting 120 boxes of stuffing and 120 cans of corn. Marksmen focused on collecting these items as part of CitySquare’s larger Thanksgiving Food Drive.
“Teaching about reciprocal care and the joy it brings is a great life lesson,” said Sherri Darver, Head of Lower School. “When the Upper School Community Service team first reached out about the Lower School boys collecting food for CitySquare, we felt that this was a great stepping stone to what I hope will be a long-lasting partnership.”
“Some people struggle to feed their families, and some kids really depend on their school lunches to eat,” said Mac Connatser ’30. “I would encourage others to give even if it’s not part of a school project — just give!”
As part of the partnership, CitySquare Food Operations Manager Meredith Parrott, took Marksmen on a virtual tour of their facilities to learn more about what a food pantry is and how their donations are distributed. “For some students, learning about what CitySquare does may be the first time they learn about hunger, homelessness, and many of the other struggles individuals in poverty face,” said Mrs. Parrott. “For other students, these may be issues they experience in their own family and my hope is that talking about the issues makes them feel less alone.”
“It was really cool to see how someone would come in with a grocery cart and pick items to bring back out to give to the people who needed food,” said Andrew Wilmer ’30.
CitySquare is a non-profit that provides housing, medical care, counseling services, and a food pantry for the Dallas community. Longtime Upper School English and history teacher Dr. John Perryman, who helped organize the Lower School drive, spent much of the previous school year working at CitySquare’s food pantry and its center for homeless Dallas ISD students before returning to teach at St. Mark’s.
St. Mark’s School of Texas is a private, nonsectarian college-preparatory boys’ day school for students in grades 1 through 12, located in Dallas, Texas. St. Mark’s aims to prepare young men to assume leadership and responsibility in a competitive and changing world.
St. Mark’s does not discriminate in the administration of its admission and education policies on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin.