Living with Purpose

Community IMPACT

When The Nashville Food Project truck pulled up to Harpeth Hall in late September, a sidewalk filled with grocery bags, boxes, and food-filled bins awaited it. So, too, did a group of excited students ready to do some heavy lifting. For two weeks, Harpeth Hall participated in a food drive to support The Nashville Food Project, a community organization founded by alumna Tallu Schuyler Quinn, Harpeth Hall’s 2020 Alumnae Spirit of Service Award recipient. The nonprofit serves hot, healthful meals to at-risk youth, refugees, members of the homeless community, and others throughout the city. One in seven Nashvillians do not have access to the food they want and need. Each week, The Nashville Food Project prepares and shares about 4,500 meals to fill that gap. Motivated by Hunger Action Month, Harpeth Hall’s Public Purpose Council rallied students to support The Nashville Food Project’s meals program. Bins inside the Upper School overflowed with bottles of extra virgin olive oil and bags of brown rice. A weekend drive-through, dropoff event inspired friends and neighbors to give huge boxes of bone broth and chicken stock. In all, Harpeth Hall families and the community donated more than 2,300 pounds of food. The students collected so many items that The Nashville Food Project truck had to make two trips to collect it all. More food would be collected from University School of Nashville and Ensworth, two local schools that partnered with Harpeth Hall in hopes of making the biggest food donation The Nashville Food Project had ever received.

The food drive serves as one example of how Harpeth Hall students strive to make a difference. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has limited many in-person community impact opportunities throughout the city, Harpeth Hall’s Public Purpose program continues to engage in meaningful ways to do good. In the first few months of the school year, students not only collected thousands of pounds of food for The Nashville Food Project, they also made hundreds of masks to donate to the YWCA Weaver Domestic Violence Center and Room In The Inn. They baked dog treats to donate to Love at First Sight and walked down the wooded paths at Percy Warner Park filling garbage bags with litter to beautify our city’s outdoor spaces.

“COVID-19 has impacted us individually in so many ways,” said Harpeth Hall senior Taylor Kappelman, who helped organize the food collection. “However, it is important to see the bigger picture on how it has impacted our community.”

"Developmentally, young people learn through doing," said Dr. Jessie Adams, who coordinates Public Purpose initiatives for the Upper School. It is important that students have the opportunity to do the hands-on work that helps address the needs in our community and our world, but that work is not enough on its own. Public Purpose at Harpeth Hall extends beyond service learning and volunteerism. Another goal of the program is to cultivate empathy and perspective taking.

“Authentic service is most meaningful when it is sustained and solution focused,” Dr. Adams said. “The job is only partly done if we do a food drive and nothing else. It is our duty to graduate young women who understand the root causes of large problems and the systemic issues that create fundamental inequity.”

If we are going to lead well, said The Nashville Food Project’s Ms. Quinn, a 1998 Harpeth Hall graduate, “we can be courageous about speaking up when something is wrong. We can talk about injustice and privilege and power. We can use our microphones. We don’t have to do it perfectly, but we can be brave in talking about it. Those of us entrusted to do the teaching, educating, and parenting of the next generation, we can model it.”

In Bullard Gym one morning during a recent school day’s community time, students gathered to make masks. At one table, a pair of girls measured and cut strips of cloth. Nearby, a group of four classmates ran hot irons over the colorful fabric to smooth it. Next to them, more students pinned elastic bands in place for sewing. Together, they created piles of protective masks to donate to local community organizations that serve individuals who may not have many — or any — masks of their own.

“I think it’s important that Harpeth Hall uses the resources we have to help our community, especially in times of crisis like right now,” said senior Grace MacLachlan, who was inspired by her grandmother to start sewing as a relaxing quarantine hobby. “I like that we are giving masks to people in high-risk situations, so that is one less thing they have to worry about. I know that giving people masks makes it more likely that they will wear a mask, and the sustainability of cloth masks is more economical for struggling families. I am proud to be able to help out for such a good cause.” For Clara Murff, a Harpeth Hall senior who serves as president of the Public Purpose Council this year, the community initiatives are all about impact in a time of need. She pointed to the spring, when Harpeth Hall students packaged diapers to distribute to families with young children impacted by the tornadoes. And then there is the pandemic. Clara’s parents are both doctors, so she first started making masks with them. But one of her favorite volunteer projects uses a different skill set. A few Sundays a year, she attends Habitat for Humanity’s build days with her dad and her twin brother, James. She is usually one of very few girls.

“When you support others you feel lifted from it,” she said. “And I want to make that possible for everyone.” The older men on the build site never ask her to operate the power tools, but she knows how. They don’t ask her to lift heavy pieces of wood. She does it anyway. She loves showing her strength and motivation to do the work to help others in our community. And now, as president of Harpeth Hall’s Public Purpose efforts, she represents many students who want to do the heavy lifting and hard work needed to help create positive change. “When you support others you feel lifted from it,” she said. “And I want to make that possible for everyone. There is a relationship between filling a community need and the enjoyment that comes with it. When everyone works together for a common goal we can build community — especially at a time when it feels broken.”