This school year, a brand new service program called “Faith in Action” promises to offer Westminster students of all grade levels an opportunity to learn through their service. Each student will be required to perform a certain amount of service time based on their grade level.

“Starting with ten hours for seventh and eighth grade, and then twenty hours for ninth, tenth, and eleventh, and then senior service is fifty hours,” said Susie Brown, Director of Student Life.

Faith in Action has an app called MobileServe, which can be found on student iPads. MobileServe allows students to easily input their service hours, as well as proof that the hours were completed. The Faith in Action app is meant to be as simple as possible; however, many students are having issues. It seems that the requirements to verify service hours are not made entirely clear to students.

“I’d say [it’s] pretty easy, but apparently you have to take pictures and get a signature from the people you complete the service hours with […] I wish they would make that more clear.” said Camille Wittock, Junior.

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding the requirements, which has led to some students being unable to log hours they completed because they were unaware that they had to take a picture.

“You have to provide the organization name and then someone who supervised who can confirm your service, and their contact information. Then we randomly choose those and then call them and verify. So it’s not necessary [to have a] signature, but their contact.” said Dr. Dani Butler, Head of Student Development.

Many students find it difficult to fit service hours into their schedule between homework, school and club sports, and other after-school activities.

“I understand how important they are, but when you have a busy schedule, it’s difficult to fit them in. I haven’t been able to do any work yet […] with all the work as a junior, it’s hard.” said Wittock, who is on the varsity cheer team.

Fortunately, this was an expected issue. There are on-campus opportunities and after-school programs such as Spanish Club; serving at homecoming carnival in the booths or concession stands is another way to complete more hours.

“We are going to announce all the opportunities on school; also, we’re going to have a group project every quarter that we can do […] as a big group to go somewhere or they come here and we do it, working with the other non-profit organizations,” said Butler.

Despite the new program, the overall purpose of service remains the same.