Caitlin McCarthy has big dreams.
This Winnetka resident and recent high-school graduate just returned from a 10-day service trip to Uganda with the organization KidsUganda, and she plans to pursue finance and international business at Georgetown University this fall.
“I want to combine work with businesses and nonprofits to improve economic growth in developing countries like Uganda,” she says. “I never would have been involved with anything like this if it wasn’t for Woodlands.”
McCarthy credits her service-oriented education from Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart as the driving force behind her passion for helping people in need.
“At school, they will teach us about world problems, and then we go and discuss these issues with our friends,” she says. “Woodlands really promotes education on social issues. They want us to form opinions on these issues and then go act on them.”
A Catholic tradition
Nestled on 41 wooded acres in Lake Forest, this private Catholic girls’ college preparatory and boarding school requires every one of its 180 students to complete 70 hours of community service before graduation. As part of a network of Sacred Heart schools in the United States, its education and service work are based around 5 goals: a personal and active faith in God, a deep respect for intellectual values, a social awareness that impels to action, the building of community with Christian values, and personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.
“Sacred Heart’s mission from the 1800s informs us today, and helps to restore hope,” says Head of School Gerry Grossman. “Our goal is to educate young women to lead others, to be attentive to the poor, to study injustice, and to create action to help people in need and learn from them. The girls learn to have a responsibility to justice, peace, and equity for all.”
The focus on service at Woodlands Academy often makes an impact on its students that stays with them throughout their lives, as evidenced at the annual spring Congé fundraiser, where parents and alums gather to raise money for scholarships for girls in need with great academic merit.
“It’s here that people show their continued faith and belief in the school and its mission,” says Tami Rocha, events coordinator at Woodlands Academy.
A commitment to service
The approach that Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart takes towards service work, brings to mind a quote from Gandhi: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“Woodlands treats service as a community project, to be together and enjoy each other while we do service together,” McCarthy says. “It’s really its own lifestyle.”
Service is more than just a requirement at Woodlands Academy—it is a way of life, and the commitment the girls make to serve others is one that they hold onto long past high-school graduation.
Woodlands Academy by the numbers
- More than 6,500 combined hours of service are completed by Woodlands Academy students each year.
- 70 hours—the minimum required number of service hours for each student over the course of the 4 years (though many students volunteer much more than that).
- 180 girls attend Woodlands Academy each year.
