Lipscomb’s campus-wide Service Day on Wednesday gave students the opportunity to provide community service for up to 50 different organizations around Nashville. Over 3,000 hours of service were accumulated in just a day.
Monroe Harding, a non-profit Nashville foster care service, was one of the service sites, which had approximately 20 Lipscomb students volunteer at it. One of the staff workers said the work those students accomplished would have taken him weeks.
“I was surprised at how much work these students could do,” said Amy Bond, a foster-parent recruiter. “I gave them a task, and before I knew it, that task was completed. I was constantly finding other jobs we needed to get done.”
Students at Monroe helped the non-profit with preparations to move out of their current location and into a new one. This included tasks from organizing paperwork to moving out furniture.
Lipscomb Bible professor Earl Lavender was one of the leaders this year, and this wasn’t his first experience with Service Day. He said he has loved seeing the interactions of students and seeing how hard they work over the years.
“Today was a great example,” Lavender said. “Everyone worked hard, and we did about three times as much as they expected. I wouldn’t have known about the mission they [Monroe Harding] were doing here if I had not come today and built the relationship we did.”
As director of missional studies, Lavender said he is very interested in helping the community, noting he would love to see Lipscomb do a service day or even “service weekend” each semester.
“And last year, I worked with Thrift Mart and was able to do some really good things in terms of letting people be aware of the ministry they are doing,” Lavender added.
Students met in Allen Arena to take a group photo and receive a sack-lunch before the three-hour service. Social clubs also worked together with specific organizations that they often work with throughout the year. Other organizations and churches included: American Red Cross, Owl’s Hill Sanctuary and Habitat for Humanity, among others.