28 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 14, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Acts of Kindness Send your Acts of Kindness to editorial@qns.com
Molloy students spend winter break giving back locally
BY JENNA BAGCAL
jbagcal@qns.com
@jenna_bagcal
Student volunteers at a local Briarwood
high school spent their winter break
doing good for fellow Queens residents.
Members of the St. Marcellin
Champagnat Society (SMCS) at
Archbishop Molloy High School volunteered
at the Ronald McDonald House
of Little Neck and the Forest Hills Food
Bank on Feb. 17 and 19.
According to society volunteer, teacher
and Molloy alum Brian Kilmas, about 25
students participated in both of the events
in February. On Sunday, Feb. 17, students
took a trip to the Ronald McDonald
House, where they had the opportunity
to cook and serve brunch to families
whose children are patients at the nearby
hospital.
Kilmas said that about 11 students took
a tour of the facilities and then made the
parents a buff et including eggs, bacon,
sausage, toast and bagels.
For their second trip, Kilmas accompanied
the students to the Forest Hills Food
Bank on Feb. 19, where volunteers were
responsible for packing assorted vegetables
for needy residents. Students packed
the vegetables in smaller bags, fulfi lling
orders received online and assisting residents
with order pickups.
“Th e kids loved it. Th ey had been there
before and they seemed to get a lot out
of it,” Kilmas said. “It makes it eff ective
to see the diff erence volunteering
is doing.”
Fellow teacher volunteer and alum
Sabina Kobinski shared that one of the
components of every volunteer trip is
interaction with members of the community.
“It’s important for students to have
that human interaction,” Kobinski said.
“When they see that some people don’t
have food on the table, it puts their lives
into perspective.”
Th e SMCS originated in Lourdes,
France, based on the tenants of St.
Marcellin Champagnat, the founder of
the Marist Brothers. Molloy educators
Christopher Dougherty and Brother Pat
Hogan founded the school’s chapter of
the society in 2005.
“Brother Pat and I fi rst hatched the idea
in the late ‘90s and 9/11 put all of that
on hold. Aft er my Molloy trip to Italy
in Easter 2004, he felt it was time to try
again. So in fall ‘04, we started researching
and planning and then the fi rst trip
ever was Lourdes in summer 2005,”
Dougherty said.
Every few years students and teachers in
SMCS take a weeklong trip to Lourdes which
involves helping visitors bathe in Lourdes’
healing waters and a visit to the Marist
Brothers’ hermitage. Kilmas said that students
are set to make the visit this summer.
Students in the society also get the
opportunity to travel abroad for volunteer
work. Th e following is a list of places
the SCMC members have been:
• Nicaragua with Mustard Seed
• Peru
• Dominican Republic with Mustard Seed
• Jamaica with Mustard Seed
• Big Sur with Rustic Pathways
• Dakotas on an Native American reservation
• Rockaway Beach/Breezy Point x2
aft er Hurricane Sandy with Operation
Blessing
• Boston with Habitat for Humanity
• New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity
• Arizona through Border Links
• Costa Rica through Rustic Pathways
Kobinski observed that the volunteer
trips “molds students for the rest of their
lives,” and some opt to pursue careers in
special education, speech pathology and
other service-oriented fi elds.
St. Demetrios Prep welcoming students for upcoming year
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
For more that 60 years St. Demetrios
Preparatory School in Astoria has been
a bastion of learning for the neighborhood’s
Greek-American Orthodox community
where 100 percent of its graduates
go on to colleges and universities.
Now the private Christian school is
opening its doors to any students in
Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, and
it has nothing to do with declining enrollment.
“The decision was made to open our
doors to anyone who wants to receive
a faith-based education,” a top administration
official said. “We get an awful
lot of phone calls from parents who are
aware that our tuition is $200 less per
month than at your average Catholic
school so affordability is a very big
component but we are also classical
humanities-based learning. So many
schools are now so focused on technology.
We try to make it an interdisciplinary
holistic type of education for
a child.”
St. Demetrios Prep is comprised of
three separate schools serving students
kindergarten through 12th grade, with
the elementary school at 22-30 33rd St.,
a middle school at 30-03 30th Drive and
a high school at 30-03 30th St. Th e school
off ers a traditional college-preparatory
liberal arts curriculum.
“We recently received a grant for close
to $20 million from an anonymous benefactor
that allows the school to keep its
tuition low for middle-class families,” the
administrator said. “But our class size is
also a factor where we have 15 to 18 students
to one teacher, and most of our faculty
has advanced degrees and teach at
colleges particularly in math and science.
Plus, we off er both athletic and academic
merit scholarships.”
St. Demetrios will hold an open house
event on Saturday, March 16, from 12 to
2 p.m. for parents interested in enrolling
their children. Th e school also features
Welcome Wednesdays where a child can
shadow a student through classes.
For more information, visit their website
at sdprep.org.
“For more than 60 years we were a little
known secret here in Astoria for Greek-
Americans speaking the old language,”
she said. “Now nothing could be further
from the truth.”
Editor’s note: Th e school administration
offi cial requested to have their name withheld
for this interview.
Photo courtesy of St. Demetrios Preparatory School
Photo courtesy of SMCS
Archbishop Molloy High School student volunteers with Brian Kilmas
/sdprep.org
link
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
link
link
link
