“MLK Day is a day on, not a day off,” explained Director of Service and Social Innovation Mrs. Jacqueline Gomez in regards to this week’s CSI (Community Service Initiative) Week of Service. Dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr., this past week has been full of a wide variety of service events, drives, and activities, all organized by the Bishop’s organization CSI.
“I’ve always wanted to do something for MLK Day,” Mrs. Gomez said. “It’s pretty inspiring to see the entire community come together to do something impactful the day after MLK Day.” One of CSI’s Chairs, Bela Gowda (‘24) spoke to the importance of MLK in regards to service as well. “He had a big dedication to service before self, and he also preached the values of DEIJ.” She also added that CSI, “really wants to get more involvement in the Bishop’s community in terms of service.” As she put it, this week is helping to “bring the community closer together while helping other communities.”
So, with all of CSI’s goals and hopes for the week, let’s review everything that went down.
On Tuesday, the on-campus service started off strong with an activity organized by the Lucky Ducklings. As Ms. Gomez explained, the entire school was “packing food and water bags for our homeless neighbors through the Lucky Duck Foundation,” a Bishop’s service club that helps with homelessness in San Diego. In assembly-like formations organized by advisory, students packed everything from water to packaged snacks to give out to San Diego’s homeless population. In total, the school packed 2,000 bags. The 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 12th grade students also made cards to be handed out with the packages.
On Wednesday, CSI hosted hands-on activities for the community to take part in through the organization Lit-World, run by Bela Gowda (‘24) and Matsa Shi (‘24). “Bela Gowda and Matsa [Shi] won a social innovation competition a couple years ago,” Ms. Gomez explained. “Through Lit World…they give books and literacy programs to schools…in Asia that don’t have access to reading and literacy curriculum.” For their club, students packaged boxes full of books and bookmarks to ship out to these low reading access communities around the world. As Bela explained, because the shipments are so global, “we have to line the bottom with cardboard, put a trash bag inside, organize the books in the boxes, and then seal them.”
On Thursday, four different Bishop’s service organizations hosted small table activities. More specifically, Adopt A Grandparent (Logan Wang ‘25), Data Science for Change (Emmie Kao ‘25), Handmade Happiness (Carley Chen and Sophia Bao ‘25), and SEAA (Reese Newlin ‘24 and Moana Peterson ‘26)—hosted small activities related to their service clubs. For example, Handmade Happiness organized a table to make bracelets, and Data Science for Change had a data-related poll. CSI Chair Sopo Guan (‘24) described them as “little activities that people can do to help a certain club with their mission and to get involved at least for like 15 minutes out of their day, just incorporating service into their daily lives.” She also mentioned that these tables were “a chance to get to know some of the really amazing on campus service organizations.” Bela similarly mentioned that the activities were a sort of “a service club spotlight.”
On Friday, the entire school worked to make toiletry kits. From January 8th-18th, CSI asked students to bring in small, travel-sized toiletries that they already owned, which then were packaged on Friday to be given to migrants on the Mexican border. “There’s a lot of migrants coming in right now,” Ms. Gomez explained. She added, “We’re hoping to give them to refugees and those migrants that need particular items. Some of them are going to be like toiletries for showering, some of them are just going to be necessities that they need right now, such as hand sanitizer, chapstick, granola bars.” Bela mentioned that the toiletries kit, as well as the rest of the week’s activities, were a great way to do service as a Bishop’s community. “They’re all just events that everybody in school can work on together,” she explained.
CSI’s Week of Service was a big success, and one that the whole Bishop’s community was able to take part in. As Ms. Gomez said, “It was incredible to see all of our students coming together to each do something small to make a huge and immediate impact.”
