Director of Service Learning Elijah Sivin recently introduced an entirely new set of winter Service Learning Teams (SLTs), all being offered for the first time, starting November 17, 2025. SLTs are student-led, service-learning-focused groups that meet weekly after school for a set number of weeks. Their main goal is to educate students on current issues while collaborating on reasonable and structural solutions. This winter’s offerings include Fresh Opportunities, which focuses on homelessness and food insecurity, and Women at Poly: Equity & Empowerment, which centers on feminism and school culture. These new teams allow students to complete their service-hour requirement while also exposing them up to conversations and perspectives.
Fresh Opportunities, led by Miles Frank ’27, focuses on educating students about the realities of food insecurity in New York City and helping them explore ways Poly can support families in need. Member Sage Smith ’29 said, “I learned a bunch of new stuff that I didn’t know before, like the brutality that happens to homeless people.” She added that joining the SLT was “a good way to connect and make friends with other people while doing good.” Fresh Opportunities guides students in finding ways to directly help those in need and to actively participate in solving these problems. Meetings have focused on understanding local needs and planning meaningful actions. The SLT meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:15-5:45 p.m. in Room 108 and runs from November 17, 2025 to January 20, 2026.
Women’s at Poly: Equity & Empowerment, led by Harper Baillie ’27 and Anna Reisin ’27, was created to raise awareness about the female experience at Poly and the role gender plays in campus culture. Baillie explained her motivation is “women’s empowerment. And I think [as] a woman, I have an understanding of what the disparities are.” She added that many gender-based experiences are “hard to systematically point out, but they have a huge impact on the experience of being a woman.” The SLT connects feminism to students’ experiences while exploring how identity such as race, class, disability and sexual orientation, shapes the experience of being a woman at Poly. Early meetings have covered topics like social media’s impact on women, motherhood and identity. The SLT seeks to elevate marginalized voices and challenge stigma and systemic oppression. This SLT meets Mondays and Thursdays after school in Room 114 from November 17, 2025 to January 21, 2026.
Both leaders stress that the SLT functions as a team where everyone’s voice matters. “With all the members of our SLT, we really want to emphasize it being a team,” said Baille. Although the programs are new, the leaders hope the Winter SLTs will spark lasting cultural change at Poly. They represent a forward step in expanding student-led learning and offering students opportunities to engage with real world issues.
