PACA prepares for the upcoming “Outreach Day,” an opportunity to serve the community in a tangible way

Caption: Freshmen Lucas Steinberg and Arthur Lobato clean up trash by the beach at Represa Guaraipiranga for community service hours. [by Dr. Cristina Meier]

by Nathanael Agcaoili

Every semester, PACA provides community service tasks, for a designated day, so that high school students can serve at a local ministry. The opportunity is called “Outreach Day,” and students spend the day helping out small community organizations granting them experience in volunteering in service and community service hours which students require to graduate.

This year, the high school Outreach Day will be on December 3, 2025, from 8am to 3pm, which is the Wednesday before the last week of school. The locations where students will be assigned will be officially assigned on Tuesday, December 2, and include the ministries at UNA, Vale Ouro (Gold Valley), Casa Semear, Casa Esperança, Desafio Criança Feliz, and Instituto Muda Brasil. In past years, PACA students have also helped at the ministry called “Novo Amanhecer.”

Lucas Ham Swisher, also known as Mr. Ham, organizes the Outreach Day as the school chaplain and one of the high school Bible teachers. The first step in planning is finding out what are the biggest needs for each ministry.

“I reach out to the organizations that the school already has relationships with and I find out what they need,” Mr. Ham said, “and then I just get an idea of how many students would help them best with the hopes that, not only do we help them for one day, but we could strengthen our relationship.”

Outreach Day is not just a day for the students to obtain community service hours, rather it is a time for students to build relationships with the community, and for PACA to build relationships with the organizations that they serve.

“Outreach is the greatest expression of the Gospel,” said Mr. Ham.

By reaching out to small communities, we show our love for our neighbors as workers of Christ. For many students and some of the teachers at PACA, this is the one time of year that they will interact with these kinds of ministries that reach out to the poorest and most desperate communities in São Paulo.

“It raises awareness for the PACA students because many times we can get very focused on academic life, on sports, and on things revolving around ourselves,” Mr. Ham said, “It’s good to just take a break from that and just give to someone else.”

Students at PACA get very busy, especially approaching the end of the semester. But Outreach Day provides an opportunity for students to take a break and just enjoy serving small communities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinmnRIK0Gk

Sophomore Mattheus Steinberg went to Outreach Day last year and commented about his experience there.

“Apart from community service hours, I went to Outreach Day to get experience serving as a volunteer and seeing how it works,” said Steinberg.

Students do not only go for community service hours, but they truly enjoy serving as volunteers and gain experience. Many of the students get to have direct interactions with children who come from some of the poorest families in the city.

“Outreach Day was fun for me because of the work I was able to do while enjoying time with my friends,” said Steinberg.

As students get ready for the upcoming Outreach Day, they can expect to have a special chapel service dedicated to giving them the specific details for where they are going and what they will be doing.  That chapel will take place on “Giving Tuesday” which falls on December 2. This is just a small reflection of how PACA’s Outreach Days can be a blessing to both the students and the organizations involved.