4.20.2011

Showing off

At Campbell we have a problem. A problem good to have, that is! 

It's hard for us to track exactly all the service our students do throughout the year because they do so much. We can record attendance at events but the many independent service projects go unrecorded and untold.

It's really important to celebrate the work any person does for the community, and especially so for college students. They're in school to earn a degree and professional experience. It takes a lot of effort and good time management to volunteer for even a couple hours of one day. Many of our students volunteer consistently throughout the whole year.

To honor and show off all the work our students have done this year, check out an abridged list of their activities and impact on the community. For more photos and information visit our Facebook page.

9/11 Day of Service
Seventy-five students woke up bright and early to honor the President's call to serve on 9/11. Among other activities they made cards for soldiers and led a food drive.


A dozen students made almost 100 cards for local soldier support
organization Operation: Helping Hands for Heroes.
Photo by Dr.Michael Smith
Students Amanda Parmley and Catherine Campbell paint walls
at Baptist Fellowship of Angier, a local church and tutoring program.
Photo by Andrew Treffer

Operation Christmas Child
Operation Christmas Child is a two-way street of box making and box collecting. Our students made boxes and helped receive them (Campbell was an OCC Receiving Center).

Campbell's administration poses with their OCC boxes.
Photo by Campbell University

Baptist Fellowship of Angier
Baptist Fellowship of Angier, or BFA for short, has its roots in Campbell's student body. Four afternoons a week a handful of Campbell students run a tutoring program for Angier's youth.


Campbell student Krysta Bell volunteers with BFA.
Photo courtesy of Catherine Campbell.

MLK Day of Service
Every year citizens all over the country serve their community to honor the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Campbell is no exception. This year hundreds of students took time at the beginning of the semester to serve.

Photo by Michael Smith

Photo by Kristin Smith


Service learning
Campbell's service learning stars are individual departments. We can commend the Communication Studies Department and (Foreign Language/Biology) Honors 101 and 102 classes for taking learning outside the classroom and into the community.




Mission trips
Campbell's primary mode of service is mission trips. Each major break in the academic calendar features a couple different and interesting trips, all with the purpose of serving.

A group of students ventured to Red Springs, NC over spring
break to serve at a NC Baptist Men camp facility.

This group spent part of winter break in India
serving the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata.
We're always proud of the service our students do. Thank you to each one of you who donated your time and gifts to someone in need!

4.01.2011

César Chávez Day

This LA Times photo captures a moment of
friendship between Bobby Kennedy and  Chavez
during Chavez's 25-day fast in 1960.
Most universities are powder kegs of ideas, untapped think tanks full of growing brains soaking up weeks worth of information in just one day. When a college campus gets a hold of an idea, big things can happen. Take Operation Inasmuch, for example.

The potential for our students to help 
uncover an invisible population is why I was so thrilled yesterday to be one tiny part of César Chávez Day, in some states the César Chávez Day of Service and Learning. 

The "invisible population" is the enormous community of farm workers we have in our immediate area, about 3,000 according to the NC Farmworkers Project. I say they're invisible because the rest of the population almost never sees them, nor do we recognize the work they do. 

AmeriCorps SAFE member
Ahira Sanchez helped
organize Chavez Day.


The new phrase, "Got food? Thank a farm worker" rang true yesterday as we brought information about farm workers to the students via word of mouth and hand outs at the student center, and later in the day with a lecture on Chávez by Campbell professor Dr. Ann Ortiz. The night wouldn't have been complete without a heartfelt performance from Pablo Bautista y Hijos, a singing and guitar playing Honduran family with a farm working past.

We didn't have a stadium full of academics and social experts. We didn't even have small auditorium of farm worker advocates. We had a small dining room with a handful of students unsure what farm workers do, who Chávez was, or why they matter. But they showed up anyway to learn something, and that means the most. I hope they'll take the information they learned last night and keep it close to them, teaching their peers in the process.

You never know, maybe next year for Chávez Day we'll need an auditorium!

¡Sí se puede!

Ahira and Dr. Ann Ortiz pose with Pablo Bautista Jr.,
Susana Bautista, and their father after playing beautifully.


Students and NC Farmworker Project staff listen
intently to the lecture and entertainment.