The City Year Boston is a youth service corps consists of a dynamic group of young people between the ages of 17 to 24 who volunteer for a year of full-time community service and leadership development. City Year entered into a service partnership with St. Peter Academy in October, 2005. Their participation in the renovations of the school’s West Fourth Street location played a huge role in preparing St. Peter Academy for the move into its permanent location.
When we first heard that over a hundred City Year corps members would be coming to St. Peter’s to help us get our school ready, we were thrilled, but also a bit apprehensive – we had no idea how to set up such a big event. The City Year coordinator assured us that they would take care of everything, and they did! Prior to the Service Day, we had several meetings to outline what projects we wanted to get done, to prioritize the tasks, and to choose paint colors. We did walk-throughs with the City Year team leaders, each of whom would be supervising a team of eight to twelve members, to go over the details. City Year brought over all of the supplies, and prepped areas scheduled for painting ahead of time, to maximize what could be accomplished on the big day.
On the morning of the Service Day, the atmosphere in the schoolyard was electric. One hundred City Year 
corps members in their red shirts cheered as they heard us tell the St. Peter Academy story, then did warm-up exercises and held what could be best described as a pep rally before dividing into teams. Each team leader took their group to a different area of the school, and within five minutes everyone was actively at work. The organizational and leadership skills of the City Year coordinator were amazing, as was the amount of work that was completed. Over the next few months, until opening day in March 2006, smaller groups from City Year came periodically to do additional work for the school.
The following summer, we were fortunate to have City Year return for another Service Day. This time City Year brought us volunteers from Advent International, a corporate sponsor of City Year. Dozens of Advent employees and their families joined City Year leaders and St. Peter Academy parents as we transformed the schoolyard, stairwells and hallways into bright, safe and welcoming areas. 
City Year’s organizing talents and leadership were again phenomenal, and the Advent volunteers were so enthusiastic and high-energy that we had a lot of fun in addition to being so productive!
The children of St. Peter Academy will be enjoying the benefits of the Service Days for years to come. We can’t thank everyone enough for helping us take giant steps towards making St. Peter Academy the school of our dreams.
City Year’s support of St. Peter Academy continues today with the after-school program called the Starfish Corps: a children’s version of City Year in which students in grades 2 through 5 learn the value of community, teamwork and service.
“Running the after school Starfish Corp program at St. Peter Academy has made me realize that St. Peter’s is the kind of school that I would like my children to go to when I have kids. The teachers know all the students and the students know each other. After spending any time at the school, you can feel the sense of community.”
- Erin O’Keefe
Senior Corps Member, City Year Boston