The Kit Reath Fellowship was unveiled by the Upper School as a new way to recognize exemplary students in community service. The Kit Reath Fellowship is an application-based position designed to reward student altruistic spirit and commitment to service.
According to the application form, if selected as a Kit Reath Fellow, students will embark on a year-long, minimum forty-hour service project, culminating in a Senior Capstone project where they will present their service project to their peers.
The Kit Reath Fellowship is named after Karin “Kit” Reath, a former librarian at the Baldwin School. During her thirty years at Baldwin, she co-founded and led the Multicultural Resource Center and hosted workshops for teachers and educators. This is where Ms. Ida Malloy, Coordinator of Civic Engagement, met Reath. It was Reath’s selfless nature that inspired Malloy to create the fellowship.
“The hope is that [the fellowship] will inspire students to take a deeper dive into service and what it means to serve,” Ms. Malloy said. “I want to honor their ability to use their gifts in spaces where maybe a lot of people don’t know what they’re doing or how many hours they’re dedicating.”
Currently, the fellowship is only open to students in grades ten and above; however, ninth-grade students are able to discuss beginning a project for next year with Ms. Malloy. For students currently eligible to apply, they need to demonstrate how they dedicate themselves to service.
“I just want students who care deeply about something or someone, and want to find ways to build on [that], and not because they get a prize or can upsell it for colleges,” Malloy said. “I want someone or some people who are doing things because that’s what they would do, even if there was no Kit Reath [fellowship].”
Through their individual projects as well as the mandatory semi-monthly meetings, the fellowship also aims to educate and increase fellows’ understanding of service.
“If you’re coming from a place of privilege and power, when you see people who are living with limited needs and resources, you [can be] quick to want to fix them or tell them what would be better, and that’s really just not your place as a person who’s there to serve,” Malloy said. “Your place is to help with whatever they ask, and even if you know that there’s a better way, it’s just not for you to do.”
Students at Baldwin are enthusiastic about the new fellowship, seeing it as an opportunity to deepen their commitment to community service and develop meaningful leadership skills. The fellowship not only provides a platform for service but also allows students to explore their passions while making a tangible difference in their community.
“I think that the Kit Reath Fellowship gives a lot of students a really great opportunity to get engaged in civic leadership within their school,” Service League representative Yee-Yee Li ‘27 said. “[It can] help other students also get engaged in civic leadership. I think that’s how it benefits the school as well. Lots of connection, and [it will] encourage less lackluster civil leadership.”
The fellowship aims to memorialize Reath’s legacy through educating student leaders and promoting altruistic service. Malloy hopes that Reath’s traits, such as her authenticity and kindness, shine through in the fellows.
“It’s important that students not be motivated by what they’re going to get out of service, but what they’re going to [experience],” Malloy said. “I hope they’ll find ways like she did to make those deep connections that are life-changing for the people that are affected by what they do.”
