The Bisons for Christ Day of Service officially began at 3 p.m. on April 2. Every year, Harding students go throughout Searcy and work on various projects in order to serve the community.

According to Todd Gentry, Rock House and Bisons for Christ coordinator, approximately 2,000 students participated in over 200 projects. Gentry said people have already called in to say “thank you” to students who helped.

Junior Shelby Coble, a Rock House intern, said that Bisons for Christ is the biggest thing of the year for interns, as far as outreach is concerned.

“Our biggest difficulty isn’t getting projects; it’s getting projects filled with people,” Coble said. “Half of the projects get filled with social clubs. Our main outreach after that is to get people who aren’t in clubs involved and also making them aware that that is a need that they can fill. That’s our biggest thing — involvement with other people.”

According to Coble, Bisons for Christ breaks down the walls of the Harding bubble and allows students to see areas outside of Harding that need help.

Senior Ben Buterbaugh is on the Bisons for Christ chapel committee, and his role was to speak and encourage people to come out and participate.

“Bisons for Christ is being what we are called to be, and that, consistently, is a life of service,” Buterbaugh said. “We use Bisons for Christ as one day to bring about awareness for service, but it’s really about the bigger part of what we talked about in chapel about being “out there,” being different, being what we were called to be; to serve, to be Jesus’ hands and feet to the world.”

According to Buterbaugh, who was part of a group that went to Judsonia and got together medical supplies for people in Africa, there was a variety of outdoor and indoor projects done throughout the community, including the tearing down of buildings, raking and cleaning yards, sorting medical supplies, playing with kids at daycares, and there was even an older lady who needed someone to teach her how to use a computer.

“A lot of times we think it’s going to be something really hard, but it’s simple,” Buterbaugh said. “That’s what this day truly is about — being that kingdom community. Anyone can go one mile, anybody can do one thing, but to go the second mile is what makes us Christians, what we are supposed to be.”