With about 150 volunteers working in churches, neighborhood centers and soup kitchens around the state on Monday, West Virginia University launched a new community service initiative challenging college students to give back to their communities one day each month.
The initiative, launched to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., is part of a larger plan for WVU students to complete 1 million hours of community service by 2018, a challenge university leaders have extended to West Virginians and one they hope will expand outreach across the state.
For students in Charleston, one of three cities where WVU sent service teams, giving back to needy communities for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday had a deeper meaning.
"When you go to school, you can feel like a visitor sometimes," said Nia Waters, a recent graduate who now works with AmeriCorps. She also helped the university's Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion coordinate Monday's outreach programs.
"Giving back makes us feel like we're part of something," she said.
And that something, one student said, is being part of something bigger.
"If you provide opportunities, students will go out and do it," said Andrew Sutherland, a communications studies senior who heads student community service at WVU. He said people may think college students are apathetic, but they are quick to rise to challenges.
"Some will get even more involved," he said, adding that students on campus go as far as organizing their own events.
While cold weather and snow kept some students from participating Monday, more than 30 students traveled to Charleston to work on various projects at American Red Cross, HOPE Community Development Corporation and the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. Remaining volunteers worked in Morgantown and Fairmont.
In Charleston, students unloaded furniture from trucks and sorted floor tiles for Habitat for Humanity, inventoried supplies for Red Cross or cleaned Grace Bible Church, where HOPE is located.
Students were thankful for the chance to use their day off Monday to give back, Waters said.
"A few told me they were happy they had something meaningful to do on MLK Day," she said.
It might not have been glamorous work or a march of solidarity through the streets, but the group at Grace Bible Church, which Waters led, considered their service as important.
Armed with scrubbers and all-purpose cleaner, the group of mostly black students crouched between pews as they cleaned their wooden surfaces. Their laughter echoed through the tall-ceilinged sanctuary.
"It makes sense to come back here," Waters said of working at Grace Bible Church. She said a church is the ideal place to give back to on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She noted King started a movement from a pulpit.
"He wanted people to be equal, not separated," she said.
Working on Charleston's West Side, one of West Virginia's most economically challenged and troubled areas, was a way for students to continue the reverend's work, Waters said.
With mounting racial tension across the country prompting protests and spawning groups like Black Lives Matter, Waters said giving back to the community is a way to effect change.
"We say how much black lives matter, but we don't do anything about it," she said. "This is a way for us to get out there and say we're not a statistic. This is how we do that: by getting involved."
Monday's outreach was the first official event of the 12 (Big!) Days of Service Initiative, which will have students participating in 12 monthly large-scale community service events in 2016.
Reach Samuel Speciale at sam.speciale@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-7939 or follow @samueljspeciale on Twitter.