What’s Right With Our Schools Southern Adventist MLK Service Day
COLLEGEDALE, TN (WDEF) -MLK Service Day is a time-honored tradition for Southern Adventist University. Each year students, faculty, staff, and alumni join together to serve local organizations and people in the Chattanooga area. That’s a wonderful example of “What’s Right With Our Schools”.
School President Ken Shaw says, “MLK day is a very special day at Southern Adventist University. We’d love to do serviced projects. We’re doing multiple service projects across the greater Chattanooga area. We are a Christian university and part of our fabric is Service. We’re happy to be here at Sleep in Heavenly Peace. We have great relationships with probably 40 or 50 nonprofit organizations in the greater Chattanooga area. So, on MLK day we get to go out and serve those communities.”
SAU Senior Jeni Bautista says, ” This is my fourth MLK. It goes so great of purpose. So, it’s not just I’m doing this stuff to do it, but you know that you can impact other people through your work. So, for instance, like a Sleeping in Heavenly Peace, you build beds for children who don’t have that.
Junior Heaven Robles adds, “I feel worthy enough to be able to do something for my community and that’s how I get to show my love my support for what God has given it to me. I get to serve others… and to be able to see that as a gift.”
Ken Shaw adds, “I hope they realize what a blessing it is to serve.”
Dana Jones is the Director of Volunteer Services, Chambliss Center for Children.
Jones says, “Today was an amazing day. Today we had five groups join us to volunteer. Ah, being a nonprofit that started in 1872, we only survived 154 years because of all of this wonderful community support.”
Daniel Cole is a Patent Attorney at Chambliss Law.
He says, ” This is not a holiday like other holidays. It’s a holiday with more meaning especially for the history of the country. I was wanting to come out and serve too… in a spirit of the holidays actually about. And not just take it as a day off.”
Dana Jones adds, “So, we had Chambliss Law join us. Signal Crest United Methodist, Covenant College, a group from Tech Systems all the way from Knoxville. And Southern Adventist university who is a regular. They join us every year on this as well as their fall enrollment day.”
David Hartman is the Professor of Evangelism at SAU.
He says, ” We’ve come out every August every Martin Luther King Day for about the last six years. And we love hauling branches, weeding the flower beds, picking up trash, and it feels good because we’re representing an organization at serving our children.”
Helena Tomaszewski is a Sophomore at SAU.
She says, “I love to help my community, especially that you know I’m living here now. And I’m really involved back in my community back in Rome, Georgia, but I really feel like I need to be active in the community where I’m going to school now.”
Dana Jones add, ” They were braving the cold out there cleaning up our 17 acres; it’s a lot to work on. And they were out there in these cold temps doing that, to organizing closets, getting things ready for fundraiser events, helping with some of our stuff in our records department, so many things were knocked off the to-do list. And that you know as a nonprofit makes such an impact.”
Ken Shaw concludes, ” My goal for all of our graduation that they would be able to be community minded and be of service in their communities wherever they go. And have a servant’s heart. We’re just delighted to be out here and serving our community.”
