Massachusetts Success Story Central Catholic High School
Central Catholic High School · Marist Catholic High School
“If your school has a service goal, Helper Helper makes the entire process easier to manage. It gives students a clear place to track their service and gives staff a simple system for oversight. We have found it to be a very helpful tool for keeping ourselves organized and our students motivated. Also, their tech and customer support have been excellent, very quick to respond and very helpful.”
The Marist Brothers founded Central Catholic High School in Lawrence in 1935, and today the school enrolls about 1,200 students from more than 60 communities. Every one of them takes part in the Marist Service Experience, giving at least 24 hours of service to those who need it most, and the school reports that more than 80% go well beyond that. Much of the service happens with organizations the school has worked with for years. "We love that we can keep a list of ongoing opportunities with organizations with whom we have built a standing relationship that students can reference when looking for new opportunities," says Maureen Shanahan, Central Catholic's Marist Service Program Coordinator. Helper Helper also automates much of the communication with students and with service coordinators in the community, and it keeps verification simple.
The Marist tradition puts a particular emphasis on serving "the least favored," and Central Catholic uses reflections to keep that purpose in front of students. "The reflection feature encourages students to think intentionally about who they were serving (even if indirectly), what need they were addressing, and why that need exists in the first place," Maureen says. "It shifts the focus from simply completing hours to thinking about what they learned and how their service connects to larger issues in the community." The reflections matter to the staff who read them as well. They "can be really meaningful to read and help us better understand the student experience of serving others."
Clear goals keep students aware of their progress through the year, Maureen says, and "the app makes it very easy for students to see where they are at with their goal." Central Catholic runs more than one goal at a time. "Because you can add multiple goals, we also have been able to easily separate the overall goal (for all students) with the additional service goal that the National Honor Society students have."
Popular opportunities fill quickly, so the school relies on waiting lists. "We use the waiting list feature all the time, and it has been super helpful when service opportunities fill up quickly," Maureen says. When an illness or a scheduling conflict opens a spot, Helper Helper can promote the next student automatically or contact everyone on the waiting list, and Central Catholic has used both depending on the event. The result, in her words, is that "we are still providing our partner organizations with the help they need."
How Helper Helper Supports Massachusetts Schools
Getting Started
Helper Helper integrates directly with the student information systems (SIS) and single sign-on (SSO) providers your school already uses, including Google for Education, Microsoft, PowerSchool, ClassLink, Canvas, and more. Students sign in with their existing school credentials and rosters sync automatically.
Already tracking hours in spreadsheets, a homegrown database, or another platform? We'll import your existing data into Helper Helper at no additional charge so students don't lose credit for hours they've already completed.
Same-Day Support from Real People
No chatbots or ticket queues. When you need help, you’ll hear back the same day from Krista, Chelsea, or Matt. Our team knows schools and provides guided onboarding and Zoom trainings to get your program up and running.
Simple, Affordable Pricing
Helper Helper starts at $500 per year for up to 200 students and includes everything you need. Additional students cost $2.50 per student per year.
- Hour verification & reporting
- Goal tracking & real-time progress
- Service portfolios for students
- iOS, Android & web apps
Schedule a Demo
Pick a time that works for you. We’ll walk through how Helper Helper can serve your school or district and answer any questions you may have.
HECVAT-assessed, FERPA-compliant, encrypted in-transit and at-rest, hosted on AWS infrastructure.
This designation benefits both parties: for your school or district, it means you can deploy Helper Helper without the administrative burden of collecting individual parent consent for every student — the same way you onboard other essential technology platforms. For Helper Helper, it means we are held to the same strict data-handling standards as your own employees, giving your community confidence that student records are protected by the full weight of federal privacy law.
The FTC provides guidance confirming that schools may consent on behalf of parents in the educational context under COPPA. Please request to see our Notice of Data Practices for Children Under 13 and our Privacy Policy for further details.
The HECVAT was developed by the higher education community (EDUCAUSE) and is widely used by colleges and universities to assess the IT security, data protection, and privacy practices of third-party software vendors before adoption. While originally designed for higher ed, its comprehensive framework is equally valuable for K–12 schools and districts looking for a rigorous, standardized way to evaluate whether a vendor meets their security and compliance requirements.
AWS operates the most widely adopted and trusted cloud infrastructure in the world, with security practices that meet or exceed the requirements of federal agencies, financial institutions, and healthcare providers. Their data centers are protected by 24/7 on-site security, biometric access controls, redundant power and networking, and continuous monitoring.
AWS is independently audited against the most rigorous standards in the industry — including SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, and PCI DSS — and provides industry-leading uptime guarantees backed by a 99.99% service-level agreement. This means your school can count on Helper Helper being available when students and advisors need it.
Administrators can be scoped to specific groups, schools, grade levels, or graduating classes — an NHS advisor sees only their NHS members, a school principal sees only their school, and a district coordinator sees the full district.
Outside community partners receive organization admin roles that let them post their own volunteer opportunities, manage sign-ups, and confirm attendance for events they host, without any visibility into student records, other organizations’ events, or school-internal data.
Helper Helper is fully FERPA-compliant, giving your community confidence that student records are protected by the full weight of federal privacy law. We never sell or share student data.
For Massachusetts schools, we sign your district's Student Data Privacy Agreement, including the Student Data Privacy Consortium agreement used by Massachusetts Student Privacy Alliance districts, and comply with FERPA and the Massachusetts student records regulations (603 CMR 23.00).
Massachusetts Schools Using Helper Helper
Blackstone Valley Tech · National Honor Society
“We've been so happy with our switch to Helper Helper! I love how I can customize the goals for our school's criteria and timelines. The students already love how quick and easy it is to submit their hours.”
Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School in Upton serves 13 towns across the Blackstone Valley, pairing 18 vocational technical programs with a full academic curriculum. Its National Honor Society chapter, with more than 90 students, tracks its service hours in Helper Helper. Jessica MacKenzie, a math teacher and the chapter's advisor, sets goals that match the chapter's own criteria and timelines, and members submit their hours in the app. Learn more about how Helper Helper supports National Honor Society chapters.
One Platform for Every Massachusetts Service Program
Massachusetts schools set their own service expectations, and many run more than one program at once. Helper Helper handles all of them in one place:
- Local graduation requirements: set a goal for each graduating class, or a yearly requirement alongside a four-year total, and see who is on pace long before graduation clearance
- Catholic and faith-based service: custom categories separate direct service from school and parish service, and students write reflections on what each experience meant to them
- NHS chapters and other groups: put each group on its own team with a goal that matches its own criteria and timeline, so every advisor follows their own members
- Civics projects that lead to service: when a student-led civics project turns into action in the community, students can log those hours in their own category and add a reflection
Service Requirements in Massachusetts
Massachusetts does not set a statewide community service requirement for graduation. Hour requirements are local: districts can add community service to their own graduation requirements, and many Catholic and independent schools ask for service every year. What the state does require, under its 2018 civic engagement law (Chapter 296 of the Acts of 2018), is that every public high school and every school serving eighth grade provide each student with at least one student-led, non-partisan civics project, completed individually, in a small group, or as a class.
No requirement at your school?
Helper Helper isn't just for required programs. Massachusetts schools also use it for National Honor Society chapters and for Catholic and private high school service programs, and it works the same way for Key Club and other student groups.