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Big Event Returns to Mississippi College


MC student, Morgan Freeman, working on a community service project earlier this year.

Mississippi College students will offer a helping hand at the Methodist Children’s Home, Ronald McDonald House, and the Second Harvest benevolence ministry.

It’s all part of a long list of community service activities on campuses nationwide as The Big Event returns to the Baptist-affiliated university in Clinton.

Mississippi College students are signing up for service projects on January 19 when the nation celebrates the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. There will be no classes that Monday on the Clinton campus as students fan out to meet a wide variety of needs in metro Jackson.

The Big Event began at Texas A&M University in 1982, and has spread to more than 100 colleges across America, including the University of Mississippi, University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University. It has reached international schools in Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain.

“We want it to be an outpouring of Christ’s love and the Christian orientation toward service,” says MC senior Alexandra Hendry, 21, of Ellisville. “We will be supporting local churches, ministries, clinics and other non-profits across the Clinton/Jackson area.”

Last year, 265 Mississippi College students volunteered with The Big Event for the first time. Student Government Association leaders got it organized and led the way again in early 2015. Last January, Hendry and four other students visited the offices of the Baptist Children’s Village to help process donations and get the funds ready to be used as gifts for children.

MC students volunteered at places like the We Will Go Ministries in Jackson, area Boys and Girls Clubs and several metro Jackson churches.

One of the MC stops in 2015, the Ronald McDonald House at the University of Mississippi Medical Center serves as a home away from home for families with kids receiving care at the Batson Children’s Hospital and other UMMC facilities. First built in 1989, the house today features 16 bedrooms.

Students will also head to the Second Harvest benevolence ministry at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton. It provides food, clothing and encouragement to nearly 1,200 clients each month.

Hendry, who chairs Christian Development for the Student Government Association, is delighted to see so many students take a day away from academics to pour their energies into helping others.

“We are hoping to shift the emphasis away from community service for service’s sake to a perspective of spiritual work manifesting in physical action.”

The MC Big Event team draws its inspiration from Galatians 6:9-10, which states, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap a harvest if we do not give up…”

The Mississippi College motto for the 2015 event is “An Opportunity to Do Good.”

The Big Event, says Alexandra, an English writing major, will focus on assisting organizations ministering to “the poor, the forsaken, the terminally ill, the orphaned and undervalued.”

MC students can sign up for three different work shifts, with the first one stretching from 9 a.m. until noon. They can also work from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and 1 p.m. until 4 p.m.

The day for Big Event activities varies among institutions nationwide. Over 20,000 Texas A&M students are expected to participate on March 28. Their tasks could be window washing, yard work or painting homes. In recent years, Florida State students volunteered at boys and girls clubs and assisted abused women in Tallahassee.

For more information, contact Alexandra Hendry at hendry@mc.edu or go to www.mc.edu/sga/big-event.