The Khabele School does not require a minimum number of community service hours. However, our students typically complete 20 to 40 hours per year. Some students serve up to 150 hours per year depending on what classes and projects they choose. Below is a list of the various community service programs that students may choose:

Khabele hosts Service Hour every Monday from 2:45 to 3:45. This hour is a part of the regular school day and is required of all students. Each advisory collaborates together to create meaningful community service projects. If you walk through the Khabele School campus on a Monday afternoon, you might find students and teachers making bracelets, washing cars, writing letters, or selling baked goods.

Ultimately, projects not only benefit the school community and the greater Austin community, but are intended to reach the level of the national and even global communities. Some projects include: cleaning up the local environment, helping pets displaced by Hurricane Ike, sending letters  to soldiers in Iraq, and working to bring clean water to villages in Africa.

Project Week is a one-week period in which we take off from classes and regularly scheduled activities to complete individual projects. Project Week takes place once per semester. Students must create a project proposal, timeline, and list of goals and objectives. Proposals must be approved by the student's advisor and parents. Students must also complete daily journals, photo journals, a reflective essay, and a presentation to the school upon completion of the project. One of the two projects per year must have a community service focus. Many students choose to volunteer for local nonprofits for that week, organize fundraisers, and spearhead donation drives.

Duncan Park Service Project

Thanks to a generous donation from the Austin Parks Foundation, the Duncan Park elective program was founded. This program is an elective class open to middle school students in which they volunteer 4 hours per week beautifying Duncan Park. Students are divided into specific committees and work hard to help improve the park. Students clean the park, install landscaping, create artwork and furniture, and raise funds.

Student Philanthropy

There is a feel to Khabele. It’s not something easily described, but it’s the reason we’re here and it’s what makes our community’s culture so open and vibrant. Perhaps the reason students and staff receive so much from this school is because it’s not all about what we’re getting – it’s about what we’re giving, too.

Student service projects are a core component of the curriculum, and philanthropic ventures range from benefit concerts to service overseas. Our students are learning what it means to give.

“The whole thing was an interesting learning experience,” says 11th grader Josh Newburger about his recent benefit classical concert for the HAAM organization. “I learned how to work with money, I learned management and I got to use my public speaking skills.” His benefit, which featured musicians from the Austin Symphony as well as himself and the members of the Austin Chamber Music Center scholarship string quartet, raised $3,135 for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. The money will go towards providing health care for local musicians.

11th grader Brittney Williams, who organized a shoe drive to benefit people in Kenya infected with the “jiggers” parasite, says that once she initiated the idea, plenty of other students jumped in. “The drive was a success,” she says, “I’m happy that once I extended the opportunity to help, people participated.”

This drive to help underlies a number of projects that happened throughout the semester: Jennifer Carlson and Elle Van Tilburg’s "Decorate Your Sole" party to support TOMS shoes, Seth Jackson’s benefit concert for the SIMS foundation, Ming Tai’s and Everett Webre’s KYP benefit concert, Kelley Janes’ advisory’s canned food drive to benefit SafePlace and Caritas. Khabele was awarded Austin’s 1st place high school fundraiser at this year’s Race for the Cure by the Comen Foundation. Gade Morris raised funds for the Animal Trustees of Austin in memory of Noah Tshumy.

This kind of philanthropy is happening the entire year here, and it’s the kind of giving that shows that our students are "getting" it.