Ethics for Children Blog | Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

Ethics for Children Service Project – Beach Clean Up

The best service day ideas come from the kids and our May service day was one of them! Our kids wanted to do something to help our local wildlife.

To set up this project we reached out to the Urban Park Rangers at the Salt Marsh Nature Center in Marine Park. As it so happened they were doing a public program about Horseshoe Crabs the same day as our service project was planned. The Rangers were more than happy to have our group come join the program and stick around for a beach clean-up afterwards.

After their presentation the Rangers set us up with grabbers and bags and we went to work. While our group is small, we had an oversized impact that day! Our initiative inspired others there for the Horseshoe Crab program to stick around and join in the clean-up!

Ethics for Children Service Project – Show of Gratitute

Our April Ethics for Children project was a show of gratitude.

The Prospect Park Board Gaming Club is a long-standing supporter of our children’s program. As a gesture of gratitude, we made board game pieces for them to use. With much creativity and great patience over twenty 2″ wooden pieces were customized for play. We hope that the gamers have as much fun using them as we did making!

Ethics For Children Service Project – Multigenerational Connection

With our BSEC platforms and Ethics for Children classes being held online, there have been fewer opportunities for multigenerational interactions within our community. Many of our students have never seen the BSEC building bustling with activity or enjoyed a brunch with the bunch. The latest service project for our EfC kids program was designed to remind participants that we are a part of a larger multigenerational community.

Earlier in March we came together and prepared house plants as gifts for a shortlist of recommended members. The kids designed and painted the pots, then chose from a variety of houseplant cuttings ready for transplant. Embodying our themes of care for the earth and care for community, the plants were potted in new soil ready to be taken to their new homes.

A special thank you to Nancy, Fiona, and Taty for helping with delivery!!!

Ethics for Children Service Project – A Surprise Party!

For their February service project, the Ethics for Children program threw a surprise party to validate and honor the work of two special guests – Jorge and Nahomy.

Jorge and Nahomy work in an industry that has been deeply impacted by the pandemic – Domestic Workers. They provide the service of cleaning houses and offices and they thought that they had been hired to clean one of the rooms in the building. As guests, they were chosen at random, with only the assurance of John, who handles the scheduling at Hire a Maid, that he would send two people who had been working with them throughout the pandemic.

When Jorge and Nahomy arrived they were met with a round of applause, a banner, superhero capes, crowns, and cards all of which the kids had prepared. Then – a party complete with snacks and dancing. A good time was had by all.

Ethics for Children Service Project – Books

The Ethics for Children program hosted its first service day of 2022 with a theme of literacy. They collected 26 boxes of gently used books (that is over 1,000 books) to donate! The children’s books that were collected are being donated to the Brooklyn Book Bodega (brooklynbookbodega.org) – a non-profit that collects and distributes kids’ books with a mission to increase the number of 100+ book homes for kids in NYC. The adult books that were collected have been donated to Books to Prisoners, a collaborative project of BSEC and The Humanist Being which provides books to prison libraries. In addition to collecting and sorting books, the kids made bookmarks, wrote book recommendations for their favorite titles, and of course, spent a little time just reading. Thank you to everyone who helped to make this event such an amazing success!