In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the University of Mississippi’s Division of Student Affairs hosted the MLK Day of Service, where university students and members of the greater Lafayette-Oxford-University community came together to volunteer across Lafayette County.
The event started with registration in the Jackson Avenue Center at noon. Also present at the center were League of Women Voters representatives, who had information about the organization’s mission and voter registration forms for volunteers to pick up.
Once volunteers arrived, they grabbed lunch, signed in and listened to a speech from Tymingie Flowers, a University of Mississippi alumni and the president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Upsilon Iota Omega Chapter.
“This program is inspired by Dr. King’s practice of honoring and uplifting the everyday people whose collective efforts make social change possible,” Flowers said. “Because the real change doesn’t only happen in speeches or headlines, it happens in the hands that prepare the meals…the feet that walk the neighborhoods and the hearts that keep saying yes.”
After the speech concluded, volunteers were dispersed to the Oxford Animal Resource Center, the Gordon Community and Cultural Center, Grove Grocery and Faith Planters. Other volunteers stayed at the Jackson Avenue Center to make dog toys and teething rings to be donated.
The dog toys were made out of long pieces of fabric and the teething rings were made out of thick beads that were strung onto pieces of string. The volunteers that took part in MLK Day of Service events were not just made up of university students — alumni were also present, along with people unaffiliated with the university that had signed up to serve.
In fact, the volunteers making the teething rings were three women who had all been volunteering in North Mississippi for quite some time and weren’t part of any university organization.
“We just love volunteering,” Edna Henderson, one of the women making the teething rings, said. “I started out with North Mississippi Regional Center, and they have volunteers out there, and that’s what we do. We volunteer out there.”
The Oxford Animal Resource Center is an animal shelter located in Oxford. The volunteers there helped give the puppies bathes, walked the older dogs in the park area behind the center and built cat shelters for cats in the nearby neighborhood.
Alpha Kappa Alpha members were at the center, as working at the Animal Resource Center was their assigned contribution to the MLK Day of Service. Gariuna Williams is a junior law studies major and AKA member from Batesville, Miss. She was helping walk and play with the dogs in the shelter’s dog park.
“Martin Luther King Jr. was a servant leader himself, so us being out here and serving in the community is a way to honor his legacy and continue what we started,” Williams said. “I think that is one of the main reasons why the university decided to make sure that we as students are all out conserving our community because it’s a perfect way to honor him.”
Members from Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated, among other university students, were stationed with Faith Planters. They helped build wooden planting beds that are open for anybody within the Lafayette County area to use to grow their own fruits and vegetables as they see fit.
Delvyn Williams and Troy Christian are two members of Kappa Alpha Psi that were volunteering with Faith Planters. Williams is a junior allied health studies major from Jackson and Christian is a junior law studies major also from Jackson.
“This is my second year doing this MLK service event, so I knew that I wanted to bring it forward to not only my brothers, but to other people to come out just for the day,” Williams said. “Make people realize that this day is not only just to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. but also to give back to the local community and just help out.”
“It is important that we give back to the community that gives to us,” Christian added. “Any opportunity that we can … serve the community that looks out for us and helps us out, we should do that.”
The Gordon Community and Cultural Center is located in Abbeville, Miss., and is most well-known for their educational summer camp offered to children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The volunteers there were helping clean up the inside of the building as well as trimming and pushing back the wooded area and overgrown bushes surrounding the fenced-in outdoor play area.
Nicholas Shaw is a sophomore allied health studies major from Aberdeen, Miss. Shaw acts as one of the community service members for the Black Student Union, which was working at the Gordon Community and Cultural Center for their contribution to the MLK Day of Service.
“Community service gives you a lot of exposure into networking with people, as well as things that you can apply to your career in the future,” Shaw said. “A lot of the different service sites that I go to, I always find the students … have more bubbly personalities. They aren’t scared to talk to people when they are actively involved in service, and it just makes them a lot more well rounded.”
The group volunteering with Grove Grocery worked a number of jobs, but most notably, they organized the pantry’s shelves, cleaned out fridges, transported goods and picked up donations.
The MLK Day of Service is a celebration that emphasizes the importance of giving back to local communities and organizations. It acts as a way to bring together university students with the people living within Oxford and Lafayette County.
Many treat the community service they do today as a way to honor King’s legacy as a leader and active member of his own community. They see King as a man who gave back, so they feel encouraged to give back themselves.
“From somebody who has a background in community service or serving people, I think it’s essential for civic engagement when someone is an adult. If you can engage while you’re in college, then you’re more than likely going to be an engaged citizen when you graduate,” Ayana Jones, a graduate assistant with the Center for Community Engagement, said. “(Martin Luther King Jr.) was just full of service. That was his life’s goal … to be in service, and so I think today is a great way to honor the legacy of somebody who was considered a freedom fighter, but also somebody who was very educated in community engagement, community organizing.”
