Every fall, the junior class here at the field school does some type of community service-like working at a local food bank. This year, they had an experience they won't soon forget.

A total of 67 students and teachers from the Field School in Northwest Washington ventured out on a community service project along the Anacostia River.

They came to pick up trash and clear debris. They ended up finding the body of a man along the Watts Branch stream.

"You don't wish that on anyone that they will discover something like that out in the day, but at the same time you think about the individual who was found and their suffering. And this is part of why we go out into the world," said Dale Johnson, Head of Field School.

The students alerted a chaperone who called police.

Yolanda McDaniels lives nearby. She says cases like this make her watch her boys even closer.

"If I'm not outside, they're not going outside. Simple as that. I can't have them going out, it's dangerous out here now, these days," said McDaniels.

Police say the body showed no signs of trauma and may have been the result of a drug overdose.

"There's plenty of needles and stuff that we have to walk around every day. There's a lot of drug abuse that goes on just sitting at the lights even around here," said Simon Green who works nearby.

Authorities are now awaiting the results of an autopsy.

At the Field School, there are no plans to abandon future community service projects even after this difficult life lesson.

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