Day 16 of 110: Labels for Education

(Originally Published Wednesday, January 29, 2014 – Blogger: One Daughter’s Point of View)

Today’s chapter activity on day 16 of our “110 Years in 110 Days” Colonel Joseph Winston Chapter anniversary celebration is to collect Labels for Education to send to the DAR supported schools.

Education is one of the three focused objectives of DAR. Today’s DAR Schools Committee had evolved by 1960 into a special committee to focus on six schools – one of which is Hillside School in Marlboro, Massachusetts. Hillside School is a boarding school for boys in grades 5-9. In Hillside’s “own words:”

In 1901 two sisters, Charlotte Drinkwater and Mary Drinkwater Warren, established a self-sustaining school for poor and homeless boys on their farm in Greenwich, Massachusetts. Characterized by practicality and compassion, the school reflected the sisters’ selfless desire to provide a home and basic education for young boys in need.

In 1927, with the flooding of the Swift River Valley to create the Quabbin Reservoir imminent, Hillside School moved to its present location in Marlborough. Throughout the tenures of five headmasters, who faced chronic financial difficulties particularly during the Great Depression and two world wars, Hillside continued to provide a haven for boys who had nowhere else to go. Until the 1980’s, the farm was central to the school’s existence. The boys grew crops and raised cattle, pigs and chickens, providing food for the entire community.

From its earliest years, Hillside was sustained in countless way by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Collecting Labels for Education is a small but simple way DAR supports schools like Hillside. But that is what’s great about being part of DAR. You can take small, simple acts and multiply them times thousands of Daughters from around the world and suddenly small and simple becomes huge and extraordinary.