Susan Snyder only wears tennis shoes four times a year in her job as a teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, because, she concedes, “dress-down days raise money for a good cause.” The rest of the time, she wears business suits, just as she did when she worked in corporate finance—to show her middle school students that she takes them seriously.

It was 15 years ago that Snyder traded her corner office for a classroom at Sacred Heart Model School. “I had to tell my husband I’d be working for a quarter of what I was making before,” she laughs. “But he understood. I come from a long line of educators. I wanted to go home at the end of the day feeling like I had made a difference.”

Snyder earned her teaching degree studying nights and weekends, still hesitant to fully give into her instincts and quit her job as vice president at the bank. Luckily, her student teaching placement landed her at Sacred Heart, where student life and culture were driven by the tenets of compassion and community. “It was a perfect fit,” she says, recalling the administration’s eagerness to leverage her leadership experience. “They were so open to what I could bring.” By the time she reached the end of her placement, Snyder was certain she was on the right path. She began teaching at Sacred Heart that very term.

In her first years at the school, Snyder watched the philosophy of service brought to life by the student body. On dress-down days, for instance, students were permitted to shed their uniforms and dress as they pleased, in exchange for a $2 donation to that month’s charity of choice. But while the children consistently brought in their coins, Snyder suspected that their intention was focused less on giving and more on what they were getting in return. One summer afternoon, the school principal, who had just returned from an educator conference, handed her a book called Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World. Snyder was unfamiliar with the authors, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger, but their message called up lessons from her own childhood.

“It was everything I had grown up with—compassion and inclusivity. Someone has written a book about the way life is supposed to be,” says Snyder. “It’s just human kindness.” Each anecdote about the rewards of service and connection seemed to validate the instinct that had led Snyder to change careers, while also detailing how the philosophy could be applied to young people. Other teachers were just as moved by the message as she had been. At Snyder’s urging, the phrase “Think WE” became Sacred Heart’s new mantra—a school-wide theme that would unite faculty and students around a common goal for the year ahead.

By connecting with the WE organization, Snyder was able to tap into an array of service-learning resources, including lesson plans to break down complex local and global issues and a calendar of campaigns to give students a way to take action. “WE has helped us be much more intentional about why we’re doing what we’re doing,” says Snyder, now the program lead for her school. “It’s not just ‘bring your $2 so you can wear blue jeans.’ Now, when kids drop their money in the bag, they know it’s helping someone.”

Before Sacred Heart’s next dress-down day, students involved in the WE program will stand up in front of their classes and speak about the cause they have chosen to support. And when Snyder steps into her tennis shoes, she’ll be confident that her school’s fundraiser is every bit as important as the million-dollar accounts she used to manage. Perhaps even more so, because she is passing on a treasured torch, helping kids learn to think of others before themselves.

“WE is helping us with that—empowering kids to go out and make difference, letting them know they don’t have to wait for us.”