HIGH POINT, N.C., Jan. 16, 2023 – Right this moment, Excessive Level College college students gave again to the town of Excessive Level by a number of service tasks for HPU’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. In complete, the HPU household devoted almost 2,000 hours in service to the neighborhood for “A Day On, Not a Day Off.” Their work is a part of the five hundred,000 service hours the HPU household contributes yearly.
“Dr. King’s presence is felt all through the HPU campus, from his quotes to his bronze sculpture displayed on the Worldwide Promenade,” says Rev. Joe Blosser, govt director of the Middle for Group Engagement. “It’s becoming that Excessive Level College honors this federal vacation with a day of service. It’s a possibility to honor his legacy by serving others, constructing empathy and strengthening our neighborhood.”
College students served the neighborhood by almost 20 tasks to revitalize native organizations, clear areas within the metropolis of Excessive Level, pack hundreds of seeds for the neighborhood, pack care kits for veterans and extra. HPU college students within the departments of nursing, pharmacy and bodily remedy additionally offered free public well being screenings for the neighborhood on the Professional Bono Bodily Remedy Clinic.
For senior Ries Allyn, the day of service is one thing she appears ahead to being a part of yearly. This yr, she participated in quite a lot of occasions all through campus and the neighborhood, together with packaging and serving meals at West Finish Ministries.
“This actually is a time for college students to mirror and take into consideration those that have impacted them and provides us an opportunity to say thanks by service,” says Allyn, a journalism main from Stamford, Connecticut. “Right this moment’s a day to work together with the Excessive Level neighborhood and be capable of give again to a neighborhood that has given a lot to us. As a senior on this neighborhood, I’ve spent 4 years right here, and it has develop into my second dwelling.”
HPU scholar Makenna Paglione helped lead a vegetable seed packaging service challenge in HPU’s Slane Scholar Middle that can present 19,000 seeds to the Guilford County Cooperative Alternate and 1,000 seeds to Rising Excessive Level.
“These seeds will permit individuals to have entry to wholesome fruit and veggies and assist cowl a few of these meals hardships,” stated Paglione, who serves as a Bonner Chief at HPU and locally. “This permits the neighborhood to learn to backyard for themselves, brings social interplay to neighborhood gardens and offers bodily exercise, so there’s so much to those packages of seeds.”
Along with college students, school and workers additionally participated within the service occasions. Jennifer Wagoner, communications specialist for the Middle for Group Engagement on campus, introduced her three kids alongside to take part in a winter care equipment packing occasion for these experiencing homelessness.
“One of many causes we selected to serve at this occasion is as a result of my son, Carter, has a coronary heart for serving to and serving to the homeless,” says Wagoner.
In 1994, Congress designated a federal vacation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service – “A Day On, Not a Day Off.” Senior Grant Hines says Dr. King’s legacy is mirrored by the service occasions that happen yearly on at the present time.
“Dr. King’s legacy is extremely essential to HPU college students, as there are reminders all through campus of his inspirational management and repair,” says Hines, a journalism main from Owings Mills, Maryland. “His legacy additionally evokes us as college students to emphasise the significance of giving again and serving the neighborhood. I’ve realized at HPU to hold on these life abilities of serving all through my life previous faculty and wherever I’m going.”
Along with the service tasks, HPU hosted a number of instructional workshops, audio system and movies highlighting Dr. King’s life and legacy.
Particular visitor Dr. Elwood Robinson served because the keynote speaker for HPU’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Worship Service, held as we speak within the Hayworth Chapel on campus. Robinson is the chancellor of Winston-Salem State College, serving on this position since 2015. He has additionally served because the founding dean of the NCCU Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences and as provost and vice chairman of Cambridge Faculty.
Robinson challenged the viewers to maintain doing the onerous work required to construct a greater future, and when rising weary, to recollect the progress already made that after appeared unattainable.
“We abolished slavery, earned the proper for all residents to vote, fought, bled and died for civil rights and granted common suffrage…,” stated Robinson. “We should consciously create an surroundings of mutual respect, hospitality and heat to which none of us is a stranger and wherein all of us flourish. I understand to get thus far, to create this sort of world, it’s going be a whole lot of work. Typically after we take into consideration the place we wish to go, it feels prefer it’s onerous to get there. However generally, it appears, now we have forgotten that we’ve completed onerous issues earlier than. Each time, it took a horrible battle between individuals who couldn’t think about altering the foundations and people who stated we already did.”
“On at the present time of celebration, after we are additionally reminded to proceed to dream, let’s not dream atypical goals, however ones full of reaching mountain tops and reaching our filled with God-given potential,” Robinson concluded. “Let the affirmation of religion, hope and love be our ringing cry. It is going to give us braveness to face the uncertainty of the long run. It is going to give our drained ft new energy.”
