Ryder Bennell joins 122 FHS classmates who will graduate June 14.

Freeport High School senior Ryder Bennell has been involved in public service since he was a third-grader helping out at the Preble Street soup kitchen in Portland.

Bennell’s service to others has continued ever since. He’s spent four years with the Interact Service Club at Freeport High and had an eye-opening experience last summer at one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the world, where people live in dumps in Guatemala.

“It was really hard to be around such poverty and not feel bad about it,” Bennell said. “People were living in dumps. But the kids were kids – playing around and joking.”

“Ryder Bennell has worked tirelessly in high school, has achieved great academic success, and contributed greatly to our overall school culture,” said Alexis Rog, a school guidance counselor. “I feel like his most impressive work was in his commitment to service in his community. He has done so much selfless work for others.”

On Sunday, June 14, at 1 p.m., the spotlight will be on Bennell and 122 classmates as they pick up their high school diplomas. Graduation exercises will be outside at Freeport High, following two years at Merrill Auditorium in Portland. Should it rain on June 14, graduation exercises would be held in the school’s gymasium.

Freeport’s other two high schools, Pine Tree Academy and Merriconeag Waldorf School, also have graduations upcoming. The ceremony at Pine Tree Academy, located on Pownal Road, is Sunday, June 7, at the school gymnasium, beginning at 10 a.m. Merriconeag seniors will pick up their diplomas on Saturday, June 13, at the school’s Community Hall on Desert Road. The ceremony begins at 2 p.m.

Ryder will take a gap year – a year off between high school graduation and the first year of college – in Madrid. There, he will stay with a family that his parents, David and Dede Bennell, know. Bennell, whose mother is the service learning coordinator at Freeport High, already has been accepted at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He’s not sure of his major yet. But for now, he is really into learning Spanish.

“I’ve met exchange students who are bilingual,” he said. “I’ve really wanted that for myself. I also needed a break from school. I went very hard and very fast at it these past four years.”

Bennell, among the class of 2015’s top 10 students, was secretary his senior year of the Interact Service Club, which provides volunteer services to the community. He and other club members have organized a 1-mile race on Black Friday, gone to soup kitchens and helped with a Hurricane Sandy relief project. They have participated in fundraising walks, raised money for the Freeport Community Services heat fund, served meals to the elderly during First Friday Dinners at the Freeport Community Center and attended Rotary Club meetings.

Bennell took an advance-placement curriculum in world history, literature, environmental science and calculus, and made National Honor Society his junior and senior years. He also was a member of Amnesty International his junior and senior years, and was active in theater and music. He has been treasurer of the Gay Straight Alliance.

Charlie Mellon, who taught Bennell global studies during Bennell’s freshman year and world history this year, said that Bennell is all about leadership.

“From the time he first stepped into the school as a freshman, his leadership really stood out,” Mellon said. “His quiet leadership is a truly inspiring example, not only for the students, but for the teachers, as well.”

Mellon said that Bennell has a “sense of self,” and a quiet capacity to bring others in.

“He’s welcoming,” Mellon said. “He’s there for anybody at any time. He’s not like the typical popular kind of kid. It’s his tolerance for everybody that people are attached to.”

Bennell didn’t mind seeing his mother every day in school, either.

“It was pretty rewarding,” he said. “I got to see sides of teachers that most students don’t get to see based on her friendships with them. I got to see them as real people rather than just teachers, which really helped me foster better relationships with them.

“These relationships led me to my senior project, which I’m now working on. It’s called, ‘Teachers Exposed.’ For the past four weeks I’ve been finding out what teachers do outside of school – hobbies, interests, activities – photographing them doing said interest, activity or hobby, and then interviewing them about it. I’ll then hang each interview and photo outside each teacher’s room so that other students and community members can see that the FHS faculty does more than simply educate. They’re all unique individuals with interesting lives. I want people to have the same relationships with their teachers as I’ve had in order to improve their motivation in school.”

He was with his mother when he made the trip to the Preble Street Soup Kitchen as a youngster. He and his mom went on clothes drives to help the poor who go to the soup kitchen.

“I was scared at first, but then with the helping, I saw the good we were doing,” he said. “It stayed with me.”

Bennell, who grew up in the Porter’s Landing area of rural Freeport with his parents and his brother Jesse, appreciates that he has been exposed to another side of life.

“A lot of people in this area are very blessed,” he said, “and a lot of people aren’t aware of it. I’m a strong believer in helping people who are less fortunate. I was raised that way.”

David Bennell said that his son, who progressed through the Freeport school system, from Morse Street School to Mast Landing School to Freeport Junior High to the high school, has always been engaging and outgoing.

“He’s into connectedness and teamwork,” said David Bennell, who works for the Trust for Public Land, a national land-conservation organization. “It’s the same reason we sent him all the way through the Freeport schools. Ryder learned the importance of people, and the importance of being connected. In every case he was influenced by exceptional teachers, and that’s been a key.”

Ryder Bennell hangs out with children from an elementary school in Escuelita, Guatemala, last summer. Ryder was there with others from the area representing Safe Passage, an organization that works in Guatemala City to help the children and families living in extreme poverty around the city’s garbage dump. Bennell graduates with his senior class at Freeport High School on June 14. Courtesy photo

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