10,000 Reasons to Rappel

Community service looks different to each person. For some, perhaps it’s serving food at a soup kitchen, spending time with senior citizens in need of company, or building a home through Habitat for Humanity. But for Xaverian’s Graham Williamson ’27, community service looks like rappelling down a building.

Late last summer, Graham took on a very unique challenge to raise money for the Special Olympics. The challenge? To rappel 200 feet down the side of Boston’s Hyatt Regency Hotel. According to Graham, this feat was “a breeze.” He and his sister, Avery, along with a team of six others, raised just shy of $10,000 for the team. Graham alone raised $1,600 of that total.

Graham first began his community service efforts in 2022, when he joined his older brother, Holden, for a volunteering session with the MetroWest Flyers. Now he encourages others to look for and jump on every opportunity to do some community service. “It’s a win-win,” Graham says, speaking of the lessons that can be gleaned from the experience. “I learned to love helping other people out, not because I need to, but because I want to.”