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By Sam Watson
Johnson City Press Education Writer
swatson@johnsoncitypress.com
As Milligan College senior Mary Helms bagged cereal Wednesday at Second Harvest Food Bank, she spoke of how her work could honor a man who dedicated his life to improving life for others.
“It’s providing us an opportunity to take Martin Luther King’s words and put them into action in a way that we give to the people around us and not just stand around and talk about the things that we can do, but actually go out and serve the community in which live and learn,” Helms said.
Culminating several events surrounding the annual holiday celebrating King’s birthday, Milligan canceled classes Wednesday and asked students to conduct community service throughout the Johnson City area to honor the slain civil rights leader’s legacy.
Milligan’s campus minister, Nathan Flora, said the purpose was to provide Milligan students with an example of servant leadership.
Here’s a Christian preacher who had a tremendous impact on our culture and dramatically changed the landscape not only of our nation but the entire world,” Flora said in a Milligan news release. “His desire for equality and peace changed lives and shaped our culture. What a portrait of servant-leadership for our students to see.”
Helms and other students volunteered their afternoon at Second Harvest, a non-profit agency that distributes food to other charities that feed needy individuals in Northeast Tennessee. Along with bagging cereal from bulk, the students also labeled cans from national donors and examined and packed goods donated from local collections.
“This is just a way for me to give to people I don’t know,” Helms said. “I may not know their faces and I may not see them, but I know that they are out there and that they need the help that I can give them.
“This has opened my eyes about the different ministries in the area that need our support and need our work all the time, not just one day a year when Milligan cancels classes,” she said.
Second Harvest Community Relations Coordinator Abby Simmons said the food bank staff was honored to be involved after a Milligan student approached her about the day of service and toured the agency’s warehouse in Gray.
“I was really excited that it was going to be a campus-wide event — that it wasn’t just going to be a class event that they had to do,” Simmons said.
Although Second Harvest receives regular help from individual volunteers and small groups, Simmons said, the agency benefits less frequently from such large groups. She said such assistance is essential to the food bank’s efforts.
“We depend on volunteers for so many things, because we are a small staff,” she said.
Simmons found the service day a fitting tribute to King’s legacy.
“I definitely think it fits together in that people are coming together in one vision to serve the people around us and not just think about ourselves,” Simmons said. “I think it’s a great way to follow in his footsteps and follow in his example that he set.
“It’s a testimony to the impact that he had on our nation,” Simmons said.
Austin Turner, a Milligan sophomore from Franklin, said he had provided service in the past to such organizations as women’s shelters and Habitat for Humanity. He planned to take a missions trip to Southeast Asia next summer.
“By carrying out what we’re doing today, I think we are following Martin Luther King’s words by serving. Hopefully, this may spawn other actions in the future,” he said. “Sometimes it’s kind of hard to find time, but you really have to make up your mind to make time to do things like this.”
According to Milligan, most campus organizations and athletic teams and many classes participated as groups in Wednesday’s service day, and other students participated individually.
Other agencies and programs receiving assistance Wednesday included Girls Inc., Coalition for Kids, the King Benevolent Fund, Carver Recreation Center, Appalachian Christian Camp, Buffalo Mountain Camp, Johnson City Public Library, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Elizabethton and Johnson City/Washington County, and the Homework Clubs at South Side and Fairmont elementary schools.