Mandi Mooney
Editor-in-Chief
September 16, 2005
Just like the hundreds of volunteer groups and non profit organizations all across America that have come together in the past two weeks in an effort to assist the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Milligan College is working to help serve those in need.
“Milligan’s administration began almost immediately to collect information on
opportunities to help the hurricane victims,” said Lee Fierbaugh, associate vice
president for communications.
Through the combined efforts of the school’s administration, the Institute for
Servant Leadership and the Linking Individuals to the Needs of the Community
Volunteer Center, several avenues of service have been identified.
“We had several preliminary discussions and decided it was best to have a
collective discussion to determine the best use of our resources - people and
funds,” Fierbaugh said.
On Sept. 8, Milligan announced that it would offer full-tuition scholarships to
college students who had been displaced by the hurricane. More than 40 colleges
in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were affected by the hurricane and are
either damaged or inoperable. Milligan is one of more than 900 colleges
throughout the country who have pledged to offer some sort of assistance.
“Quite a few colleges across the U.S. were making similar decisions, all at
varying degrees,” Fierbaugh said. “It was wonderful to see academia responding
in such a supportive way - waiving tuition is a notable and generous step for
colleges and universities. We quickly agreed at Milligan that it was something
we should certainly do as a college and that we should do as much as possible.”
Since the announcement, only two students have experienced interest in attending
Milligan, with one student already beginning classes earlier this week.
Along with providing free tuition for the fall and spring semesters, Milligan is
helping by raising money to donate to World Vision, a Christian relief and
development organization that has already provided emergency supplies for more
than 10,000 evacuees.
The administration agreed to match up to $3,000. After three collections, $1,945
was raised, for a total of $3,890.
“I feel it’s important that we support these people because first of all we are
Christians and are called to serve the least of these and serve those in need,”
said junior Emily Hand. “This is the least we can do, since it’s American
citizens, is to raise this money.”
According to sophomore Melissa Thompson, LINC is planning on holding a car wash
to help raise money, as well as collect donations such as soap and shampoo.
Several students and faculty have expressed interest in traveling to Louisiana,
Alabama and Mississippi to assist the hurricane victims and the relief efforts.
Thompson said that no definite plans have been made, but taking a trip during
fall or spring break has been discussed.
“Clubs are getting together plans and they can either go through (LINC) or they
can do their own thing,” Thompson said.
“This is something that most people are involving themselves at both the
personal level, as well as at the organization level,” Fierbaugh said.