Missouri Western students honor MLK with service day
By Kendra Simpson
Local college students gave back to the community while recognizing what Martin Luther King Jr. famously said to a crowd more than 50 years ago, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?'”
Missouri Western State University has hosted the “What are you doing for others?” service day for three years to instill a sense of community and humanitarianism in its students.
On Jan. 19, dozens of students spent their free time at the Second Harvest Community Food Bank and the YWCA Bliss Manor, organizing storage rooms, packing boxes of food and deep cleaning kitchen appliances.
Student groups from Missouri Western, such as Greek life and athletics, often volunteer for these service days.
“We just like to make sure that everyone in our community is taken care of,” said sophomore Alyvia Goddard, a member of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority. “We just like to do anything we can to help others … just to show that our support is always here if anyone needs help.”
Bliss Manor is quite familiar with Missouri Western volunteers, so much so, they even named a room in the transitional housing building “the Missouri Western room” due to all of the volunteer hours spent cleaning, painting and refurbishing the room.
“We have a partnership with Missouri Western,” housing manager Dawn Berryman said. “They come one Friday a month and the students volunteer in our building. They have painted, they have torn up carpet, they have cleaned apartments. Our women are extremely grateful for the work that they do and we love this partnership.”
Whether they realize it or not, the work these students do throughout the semester makes a difference, not only in the community, but for the individuals they may never meet.
“The impact that having these students here makes on our women, they can see that the community loves them and that they care about what’s happening with them,” Berryman said. “My goodness, the impact it makes on our ladies is amazing.”
Second Harvest has also expressed the importance of these students volunteering. For the students, opportunities like Friday’s service day may be a chance to earn volunteer hours for their organization, but to those they’ve served, it could be a lifesaver.
“We’re making a difference at the community level,” sophomore Jacob Ridens said. “One of the things I always get told is each of those boxes represent a name, face and soul. It’s very nice to be able to kind of remember that.”
To learn more about volunteer opportunities through Missouri Western, visit the university’s Center for Service website at missouriwestern.edu/center-for-service.
