While 1.5 million people prepared to march in Washington, D.C. for women’s rights, approximately 70 Longwood students gathered in the student union ballroom on a gray morning to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. through community service.
Typically, the Office of Citizen Leadership and Social Justice Education's annual MLK Challenge, starting their MLK celebration week, occurs in tandem with the national holiday. However, organizers Jordan Bynum and Emoni Evins said they pushed the event to Saturday so more students would be on campus due to the late start to spring semester.
“I think for a lot of students, hopefully, this is an opportunity where them to step out of their comfort zone and do something that they wouldn’t normally do,” said Bynum, Longwood’s program director of citizen leadership and social justice education.
The student volunteers were divided and sent to seven service sites within Farmville and Cumberland County, including Habitat for Humanity, three horse ranches and three nursing homes.
The office partnered with the Black Student Association (BSA) to organize the event. As the student coordinator, BSA Vice President Evins said she worked to use feedback from last year’s post-event surveys to streamline the day and reach out to student organizations.
“It feels more organized this year,” she said, explaining they tightened the schedules. Larger groups like the men’s soccer program, fraternities and sororities within the National Pan-Hellenic Council, BSA and service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega participated together, split between the sites.
According to Evins, the event is typically capped at 100 participants, due to T-shirt supply and number of service sites available. Bynum added the limit depends on available funds each year and the number of students expected. This year’s event, not including the rest of MLK celebration week, cost $1,000-$2,000, she said.
According to Bynum, the main contact for potential service sites, all of the sites who hosted volunteers had taken part in the MLK challenge in past years.
Evins said, “It’s a weekend and no one wants to do it in the early more, but community service is really important. You need to be involved in your community because sometimes I feel like the community in Farmville thinks that we’re taking away from their community ... and it’s important for them to know that we give back and that we care.”
Holly Manor activities director Francine Smith said the long-term elderly residential home enjoyed any opportunity for Longwood students volunteer inside their facilities.
“When the Longwood students come, I usually have them do one-on-ones. Or with the lower functioning residents I have here, they sometimes can’t interact with my regular activities. So when they (the volunteers) do come, they help use with our low functioning residents which is great,” said Smith.
Longwood volunteer Oyindamola Olayinka read to some of Holly Manor's residents for the MLK Day of Service Challenge. pic.twitter.com/klDELRf44g
— Halle Parker (@_thehalparker) January 21, 2017
Saturday’s student group read and played games with several residents in a few different spaces.
One of the horse farms who accepted the volunteers was Glory Reins Ranch, a non-profit, Christian horse ranch just outside Farmville’s boundaries. Co-owner Robin Warren said the ranch provides services to people suffering trauma as well as at-risk children.
The ranch’s mission is to heal people through exercises with their horses and other therapeutic stations within the ranch, she said. Warren and her husband, Kevin Warren, own and manage the ranch.
“I think with Longwood I just appreciate their willingness to come out and serve at on a Saturday morning,” said Warren. “It shows them what we do, it allows them to pray for us and also gives them a resource to use for anybody that they may know in the community who may benefit from the ranch.”
A mix of Longwood and Farmville volunteers helped the Warrens begin a perimeter expansion and begin to build a new fence. Another handful of Longwood volunteers cleaned old horseshoes to be repurposed into picture frames for guests when they take photos with the horses.
Both Smith and Warren said the services they provide rely on volunteers, valuing when Longwood students reach out to put in hours.
A mix of Longwood and Farmville volunteers aided Glory Reins in building a fence to expand the perimeter for their stables. pic.twitter.com/CZdtApIWME
— Halle Parker (@_thehalparker) January 21, 2017
“I just love it, I love the community working together,” said Warren.
The MLK Challenge ended with group reflection and closing remarks within the auditorium of the Robert Russa Moton Museum, just outside Longwood’s perimeter. The Challenge will be followed by three other events over the course of the week, including a guest speaker, movie night and bus trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Bynum said, “I hope that first serve or that week served or however long they served in college will spark a lifetime of dedication to service.”
