The Alleynian 712 2024

versary of the College in 2119. With this in mind, we have recently launched the 500 Club and Impact 500. The 500 Club was launched by the Master in 2022, with the small, initial membership being taken from among the OAs who have been most committed to service through their time at Dulwich. These 500 Club members will act as mentors within our Impact 500 programme. Impact 500, launched at the beginning of this academic year, looks to encourage philanthropic endeavour and social enterprise among current pupils. It has provided pupils with the opportunity to consider how they might respond to areas of social or environmental injustice in ways that ensure agency and ownership. Impact 500 is completely voluntary and takes place during pupils’ free time. Building on their own thorough research, each pupil, supported by an older mentor, will conceptualise and actualise their own purposeful enterprise project, seeking both to raise awareness and also to promote involve- ment within their chosen area. It is our hope that pupils throughout the College will realise that they themselves possess the ability to make a difference; they do not need to wait for a school-led project to be established. We have been impressed by recent research presenta- tions on topics such as homelessness (supporting Centre Point) and supporting children with disabilities (supporting Chase Shooting Star). As more pupils engage with Impact

momentum for this reappraisal was shaped by several factors: it began at the time of our Quatercentenary in 2019. Our choice of St Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians as a reading at the Commemoration Service in St Paul’s Cathedral expressed an aspiration to embrace charity in the sense of the highest form of love. The pandemic equally caused us to reflect on the very nature of com- munity action and service, particularly once we were able to re-build our projects and engagement post-2021. The final impetus was the resonance of the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the 2022–23 academic year, when many reflected on the essence of a well-lived life devoted to the service of others. We now educate our younger pupils about what charity, philanthropy and social enterprise are, alongside asking them to raise money for causes through events. This aca- demic year the College and the Old Alleynian Association have determined to support the same Charity of the Year: The Uganda School Project (TUSP). Its founders have been engaged over the last two years in offering work- shops to Lower School pupils about philanthropy and how to set up and run a charity and fundraise for it. As we ‘reassert and reimagine’ service, we do so con- scious that there are current members of our College community who will be alive to witness the 500th anni-

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THE ALLEYNIAN 712

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