Megan Reed, Campus Carrier News Editor
The largest freshman class in Berry history completed community service projects in Rome and Floyd County on Sept. 7 as part of Berry’s fifteenth annual First Year Service Day.
Projects included packing bags of food for Rome Action Ministries, visiting and playing Bingo with residents at Golden Living Center, landscaping at Main Elementary School, maintenance at Longleaf Pine trail and grounds work at Oak Hill.
Katherine Powell, director of the office of first year experience, said that one of the purposes of First Year Service Day is to help students “forge new friendships and get to know each other in ways they haven’t before.”
Senior Holly Davis, student coordinator in the office of first year experience and head first year mentor, spent the summer communicating with organizations to coordinate where the 36 BCC classes would volunteer. She has been a first year mentor for the past three years and has noticed that the freshmen return from First Year Service Day with stronger bonds and friendships.
“[The students] just come back and they’re a lot closer as a group and a class,” Davis said. “They work together easier. It’s just a great experience. They are working together investing in something else, and they share that common goal, which I think is very beneficial to all of them. They have fun with it, too.”
Powell said that First Year Service Day is also intended to help freshmen “get a sense of the culture of Berry.”
“Berry is a school with a really strong culture of service.” Powell said. “We started as a school that was meeting a need in the community. It’s really wonderful for new students to really get what that means right in their first couple of weeks on campus.”
Freshman Emily McLendon, whose class helped clean up Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome, said that she was grateful for the opportunity to serve the Rome community because most Berry students receive scholarships in order to attend Berry.
First Year Service Day also helps Berry build a positive relationship with the Rome community. Berry and the organizations which participate exchange thank you notes every year, and Powell said that the work Berry students do is appreciated.
“A lot of people are quite surprised by how much work our students can do,” Powell said. “Our students go in and tackle the job and do good work.”
Berry collaborates with many of the same organizations each year. Davis volunteered at Mountain Springs Church for the fourth time this year after having gone there with her own BCC 100 class and then serving as a first year mentor for the past three years.
“A lot of these organizations we’ve been working with for several years, and they always look forward to having a group from Berry,” Davis said.
