Westminster Will Fill 2,500 Buddy Packs for Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service
Faculty, staff, and students at Westminster College will fill 2,500 Buddy Packs for the local Food Bank as a part of the campus plan to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a Day of Service.
Bringing the Westminster community together to prepare Buddy Packs for The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri is the central project among a series of campus service activities to celebrate the day. Members of the Westminster community will gather from 10 a.m. to noon on Monday, Jan. 20, in the Mueller Student Center to volunteer time for the project.
Currently, eleven different student organizations have volunteered their services Monday to help reach the campus goal. Last year the Westminster community scheduled a similar activity but completed filling 1,700 Buddy Packs so this will set a new campus record.
Buddy packs are backpacks filled with kid-friendly, nutritious food that students take home over the weekend or holiday periods to supplement their meals where there is not enough for them to eat at home. Then the students bring the empty Buddy Pack back to school to be refilled.
During the 2012-13 school year, the Buddy Pack program fed more than 6,700 children every week. The Food Bank partners with elementary schools in 28 of the 32 counties it serves.
Westminster is partnering with Central Christian Church, the regular distributor of the Callaway County Buddy Packs.
This is the first event in Westminster’s Semester of Service campaign, “Global Access to Education.”
“Dr. King’s dedication to social justice and equal education opportunities provide the catalyst for our focus on injustices inhibiting education,” says Rachael Holloway, Fellow with the Westminster Office of Community Engagement and Service Learning, which is coordinating this effort.
Holloway wrote a grant to Campus Compact, a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents dedicated to promoting community service in higher education, and received $1,000 to help support this project.
Several Westminster student organizations also have service activities taking place in conjunction with MLK Day.
Civicus, a campus student leadership program, is working with Humanity for Children, the Rwanda Partnership and the local Fulton Rotary chapter to host a Bright Light Fundraiser on Feb. 28. The funds will be used to purchase solar lamps for primary school children for two villages in Rwanda Africa.
Service Corps has helped establish the Blue Jay Student Food Pantry, an entirely student-run program to provide non-perishables for those who remain on campus during school breaks when dining service is not operating and for those students who have limited financial resources.
The Westminster Art Club is introducing their upcoming “Art with a Heart” silent auction and art sale. Members of the Westminster community have been asked to submit artwork and the auction will take place from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. on Jan. 31 in the Mueller Student Center. The proceeds will go to organizations that are working to help the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
The MLK Day of Service is just one way the Westminster community gives back to others as a part of its leadership mission. Westminster College students, faculty and staff spend at least 10,000 hours every year doing community service.
