This special magazine section is the product of an assignment in my Lit 9 class. For three years, I have taught Journalism to seniors as an alternative to Lit 12. This class produces almost all of the Off the Leash content.

For this project, 9th graders got a chance to tell true stories about people doing important work in the SRHS community. Each student identified a “community servant” who benefits the lives of others in the community. They considered the work of coaches, neighbors, business owners, grocery store workers, politicians, activists, reverends, firefighters, nurses, delivery people, tutors, lawyers, nannies, auto mechanics, and others.

The goal was to conduct a thorough interview and write a profile to capture the subject and their contributions.

Please enjoy these pieces. Most of these students had never conducted an interview or thought about doing real journalistic work. And now they are published in a public forum, and the community can better know the people they profiled. In this sense, because storytelling can help people know themselves and others better, these students are serving the community too.

Thanks for reading!