Written by Carly Kester
The Searcy community was flooded with Harding students on Saturday, Oct. 9, to signal the end of “Celebrate: Kingdom,” an effort to help raise funds for the Sunshine School.Leaders for each service group led students to perform various projects around town. According to Steven Ramsey, Student Association president, the event on Saturday, called “Celebrate: Service,” was mainly supposed to provide a way for Harding students to connect with the town of Searcy.”We wanted to show Searcy that we are partners with this community and we’re part of it,” Ramsey said. “Not necessarily, ‘We’re doing this for you,’ but ‘We’re in this with you.'”Soo Park, service director for the SA, said that she hoped the service projects would help students realize God’s purpose in their lives.”I knew that once students got out of their comfort zone and experienced things that they wouldn’t normally, they would come out knowing better who they really are and who they are in Christ and what Christ’s purpose is in their life,” Park said. “The SA purposefully added all the service projects that we felt would benefit students and help them realize some of those things.”Some service projects included bagging groceries and loading and unloading carts at Wal-Mart, doing laundry for Searcy citizens, visiting nursing homes and cleaning up community buildings around town.Will Waldron, SA freshman representative and leader for the group that visited Harding Place, said that along with being able to visit with residents, this service project also provided a way to include freshmen.”We just wanted the freshmen to get involved, and this is one way of doing it,” Waldron said.Waldron said he enjoyed getting to spend time with residents of Harding Place.”I’ve met several people already this morning, and they’re all great people,” Waldron said. “I love to hear them share their story, and they love to listen to us as well.”Leah Crowder, president of the Multicultural Student Action Committee and leader of the Wal-Mart group, said that the service project provided a way for her organization to help with the community.”I thought it would be a good cause,” Crowder said. “I wanted our group to do a service project anyway, so when this came up I decided this would be a good opportunity for us.”Crowder also said that although their group did not ask for tips, people donated money anyway.”I’ve been telling people that generally we’re not accepting tips just because that makes it kind of complicated if people feel obligated to pay,” Crowder said. “But we’ve had a few people kind of insist on giving tips, so that’ll be donated to the Sunshine School.”Katie Wade, president of GATA and part of the group that helped at Kroger, said that the service project provided a stress-free way for them to help out in the community.”It’s nice to get out and do things for the community every now and then,” Wade said. “And it’s something that we didn’t have to plan ourselves. It kind of takes some of the edge off. It’s nice just to be able to be told what to do and help.”According to Park and Ramsey, the overall feedback from the Searcy community was positive and appreciative.”One of our leaders from one of the nursing homes … was asked to come back and do it again, which was good because that’s what I hoped that reaction was going to be from the people,” Park said.Ramsey said that about $250 was raised on Saturday through various donations and a raffle that was held at the football game. He also said he wants the service projects to be the push for students to be involved with Searcy.”I hope that students will find ways to be involved on their own initiative, that clubs, on their own initiative, will find ways to plug in themselves,” Ramsey said.Park said that about 250 students showed up for the service project, with the majority of them being underclassmen.”I just want to commend the student body and people who participated, especially freshmen who came out and were being a part of it,” Park said. “I hope and pray that they remember the lives they’ve touched and just remember the feelings they had when they were able to see their acts of kindness will go a long way.”
