Start of school year means serving for UM freshmen

Moving away to college can be an eye-opening experience for freshmen. They no longer have mom and dad to wash and iron their clothes, prepare their meals or take care of them on a daily basis. For University of Mobile (UM) freshmen, their eyes are opened to a whole new world of people in need.
   
Traveling by bus to the Prichard Infracare Center in one of the poorest areas of Mobile County, students passed homes with bars on the windows, sagging roofs and paint peeling away from the houses. Garbage was strewn along the sides of the streets. The center, in the heart of Prichard, is a safe haven for the area children and is home to the Head Start Center and Boys and Girls Club.
   
Approximately 200 UM freshmen volunteered in areas just like this during “Project Serve,” part of UM’s freshman orientation program.
   
Their volunteer efforts ranged from spreading mulch on the playground of a Head Start Center to yard work at an elderly woman’s home to giving a 4-year-old cancer patient a newly decorated bedroom that is “out of this world.”
   
“We want our students to apply their faith and the things they’ve learned to life, not waiting until they graduate to make a difference in the lives of others,” said Neal Ledbetter, director of spiritual life at the Baptist-affiliated school. “There’s no better way to start off the school year.”
   
Amanda Green, a freshman from Alabaster and member of Valleydale Baptist Church in Birmingham, said Project Serve opened her eyes to the needs of others around her.
   
“I’ve been on missions trips with my church, but it was neat to do a community service project with other students. We were able to serve others not just from a church standpoint,” said Green.
   
Green’s group worked to clean and paint a gym at the Prichard Infracare Center. Green was one of five students who painted a mural on a wall at the entrance.
   
“Painting that mural was one of those things where you feel like you can leave a lasting impression. Project Serve gave me a sense of being plugged in to the community. We are going to have lots of other service projects throughout the year, and I will definitely be involved with that,” said Green.
   
Project Serve is just one of many opportunities UM students have to give back to the community.
   
Each semester, hundreds of students travel across the Southeast for a 48-hour intense inner-city missions experience called Urban Plunge. Students are also offered weekly opportunities for community service in the Mobile area.
   
Candice Arnette, a member of First Baptist Church, Bay Minette, helped to spread mulch at the E.A. Palmer Head Start center in Prichard.
   
“This trip made me more aware of places in need around here that I would never know about. Even though it was hard work, it was rewarding, and I want to continue to do that,” she said.
   
Arnette and fellow freshman Jordan Aliss of New Orleans not only worked to help people they would never see, but invested time in someone they did see.
   
They shared their faith with the charter bus driver who drove them to the work site. She prayed to receive Christ on the spot.
   
“We were able to explain the plan of salvation to her,” Arnette said. “She said that she didn’t even know anything about God. But after we explained to her what a relationship with Christ meant, she prayed to receive Him. We got her phone number and her address, and we’re going to follow up with her.”
   
This one example is the reason UM offers service opportunities for its students, according to Ledbetter. “We want our students to change the world, and you change the world one person at a time.”