Quaker meeting for worship is the spiritual center of life at George School—it brings students, faculty, and staff of all faiths to the George School Meetinghouse to engage in silent inward searching and prayer, as well as to share insights aloud. Now, meeting for worship is becoming a focus of off-campus alumni gatherings. On Sunday, July 25, 2010, George School alumni will take part in meeting for worship in Black Mountain, North Carolina, at Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting. This event builds on the success of a similar gathering that brought together nearly thirty alumni and faculty at Fifteenth Street Meeting in New York City on June 13.

“Our plan for these events is simple—peaceful reflection followed by hilarity and good food,” said Karen Hallowell, director of alumni relations at George School. “Alumni have an opportunity to reconnect not only with each other, but also with the solace they experienced in meeting for worship as George School students.” Karen plans to expand the outreach to include other monthly meetings around the country.

At the event in North Carolina, alumni will join Karen to attend the 9:30 a.m. meeting for worship at Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting, which is clerked by former George School faculty member Catherine Peck, parent '03, '05. Afterwards, the group will gather for an informal meal nearby. The New York gathering followed a similar schedule, with the George School participants convening for lunch at a nearby restaurant after their attendance at Fifteenth Street Meeting.

“It was great to see familiar faces and be reacquainted with the peace of meeting for worship. I plan to go again,” said Nadia Wynter '94 of her experience attending Fifteenth Street Meeting with her former classmates.

At George School, each student is assigned to attend a weekday morning meeting for worship in the school’s meetinghouse—a building that was transported to campus brick by brick from Philadelphia’s Twelfth and Chestnut Streets and reassembled in its current location in 1974. All students on campus on Sunday attend meeting for worship that morning as well. As community members enter the meetinghouse, settling into the simple benches, it becomes clear that meeting is a universal time for reflection and consideration of the events of one’s week, and a purposeful centering of the mind.