{"id":13231,"date":"2019-04-25T21:07:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T03:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=13231"},"modified":"2019-04-25T21:07:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T03:07:47","slug":"getting-plugged-in-for-searcy-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2019\/04\/25\/getting-plugged-in-for-searcy-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting plugged in for Searcy summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Although many students go home for summer break, many also choose to stay in Searcy to experience what they refer to as a \u201cSearcy summer,\u201d hoping to get involved in the community.<\/p>\n

Senior Toria Adkison from Cincinnati, Ohio has spent three summers in the Searcy community as a college student. Adkison said that she moved to Searcy the week after graduating high school to start working at Kibo Midnight Oil Coffeehouse and loved her experience.<\/p>\n

She said getting involved with her church by joining the worship team and spending time talking with customers at Midnight Oil helped her get to know Searcy locals and grow to love the community. She also said spending time with families from her church who took her in was a good way to get to know people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked just sitting there [at Midnight Oil] and talking with people,\u201d Adkison said. \u201c… People here are really good about noticing college students when they\u2019re here alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Bailey Warpula has spent her year working with people who are homeless at Jacob\u2019s Place and Mission Machine for her field placement as a social work major, which has sparked her interest in community volunteering. She said there is a huge need for students to bridge the gap between Harding and the Searcy community through volunteering.<\/p>\n

Warpula said there are many needs right around the corner in Searcy that she did not see until this year, and she wishes that she had gotten involved sooner. She said she would tell those interested in getting involved to be willing to do research, whether that be getting plugged into a church, finding a job in town or just Googling \u201cvolunteer options.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFind something you\u2019re passionate about and research it,\u201d Warpula said. \u201cAnd you\u2019ll feel excited to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warpula also encouraged students to get involved outside their comfort zone and just start somewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has an hour on their Saturday,\u201d Warpula said. \u201cWake up one hour early, and go do something that\u2019s not for yourself … go take the step … and you\u2019ll realize \u2014 it\u2019s not that scary; it\u2019s not that hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adkinon warned not to overload yourself by being involved in too many things. She said that she wishes she would have truly invested herself in a few things well and not spread herself so thin.<\/p>\n

Main Street Searcy Director Amy Burton said that some opportunities for students to integrate themselves into the community over the summer will include helping small businesses with renovations, helping with kids\u2019 activities at the farmer\u2019s market or volunteering with the Office of Community Connection.<\/p>\n

She added that students can go to mysearcy.org to learn about more volunteer opportunities or submit their name along with their community interests.<\/p>\n

\u201c… if they just want to get in and put their contact information, then as projects and assignments come around, then we can reach out to them,\u201d Burton said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although many students go home for summer break, many also choose to stay in Searcy to experience what they refer to as a \u201cSearcy summer,\u201d hoping to get involved in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15135,"featured_media":13232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}