This past weekend, the Hilltop was buzzing — literally! — as families joined Hackley Alumni and head beekeeper James Pratt '97 in the apiary for some honey pulling! Attendees had the chance to learn more about bees and honey while shaking the bees off the honey and adding new frames for them to work on. 🐝🍯 Pulling the honey off our three hives in August gives our Hackley bees enough time in the fall to make enough honey to get through the winter. The combs are frozen to kill any bugs or mites and will be spun to get the honey off in February around Valentine's Day since — fun fact — St. Valentine is the patron saint of beekeepers. #HackleyApiary #HackleyOutdoors #HackleyOutdoorEducation #HackleyCommunity #HackleyAlumni #HackleyBees 📸 courtesy of Ms. Johnson (fb)

Last week, Hackley introduced a new K-12 initiative: the “United, We Help One Another” Social Impact Project — a community engagement learning experience designed to foster empathy, build leadership and deepen our understanding of systemic social issues in Westchester County. The project kicked off with thoughtful and powerful presentations by students in the Service Leadership for Social Impact class (pictured), who spoke about this year’s topics of Wildfires and Climate Change, partnering with Tarrytown Environmental Advisory Council (TEAC); Immigrant and Refugee Justice, partnering with Hudson Valley Justice Center; and Disability Justice, partnering with The Arc Westchester. This project centers student leadership and invites our entire K-12 community to build awareness and empathy around hyper-local social issues, research and engage with community partners addressing those issues, and design and implement awareness campaigns across all divisions. To support our students in their research and learning, the Community Engagement team also partnered with each divisional librarian to create age-specific reading lists that explore the three featured social issues and their community partners. In addition to presenting their topics to fellow Upper Schoolers at last week’s “Social Impact Symposium,” student leaders also supported presentations in the Lower and Middle Schools this week and partnered directly with representatives from each nonprofit during our “Community Connection Forum” Thursday afternoon (pictured). #HackleyCommunityEngagement #HackleyServiceLearning #HackleySocialImpact #HackleyUpperSchool #HackleyStudents #UnitedWeHelpOneAnother (fb)