On Oct. 31, Union students and faculty served various local organizations for the school’s annual Campus and Community Day.
Every year since 2002, Union University has held a day to give back to the Jackson community for their service to the university after the 2002, 2003 and 2008 tornados, with groups doing everything from painting elementary schools to mulching flowerbeds in parks. However, the focus of this event has shifted in more recent years as the university moves further away from the hardships it faced then.
“It’s all about thanking God for where we are now,” Adren Pearce, coordinator for service and mobilization, said. “It’s not because we’re thinking ‘this happened and we have to do it because it’s tradition.’ It’s something we care about as a community.”
Current Union students have little personal remembrance of the tornados or the generosity shown by the Jackson community. Instead, students now serve out of a broader desire to show Christian charity, according to sophomore communications major Colin Harris. He and his team worked on the Union Trails event, putting together and cementing down a new bench along the path.
“I was only three years old when the tornados hit, so I had no idea that Union existed,” Harris said, “so a lot of students in this current class don’t know anything about what happened with them, nor are they emotionally attached to it, so making the heart behind the mission serving others and showing other ways that they can serve has been what got people involved.”
This has also impacted the methods used to get students to register to lead these teams. Pearce has found that most students are willing to step up when he asks them directly, and he has primarily used that method this year as he set up the event.
“A lot of people, if you just give them a chance, they step up,” Pearce said. “A lot of students want these opportunities but don’t know where to find them. So if I personally ask them, they respond to that.”
These students continue to shape the future of this event as their motivations for volunteering keep shifting toward more personal goals as well as far broader values that Union holds, such as gratitude and having a servant’s heart.
“With younger people coming into office and being in charge of it, I definitely see the vision and thought behind it changing,” Harris said. “I think that theme will evolve.”
Pearce sees the future of Campus and Community Day staying true to its original values of thankfulness but shifting in smaller ways as the new students continue to join the university.
“As students get more immersed in Union’s culture, they gain more of Union’s values,” Pearce said. “Those values might seem strange to them at first, but the more you begin to care about the community, the more those will matter to you.”
