In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Otterbein's Center for Community Engagement (CCE) held their annual day of service. After the MLK Convocation, students attended Pac the Mac and other events in the Campus Center to complete multiple service projects. These projects help student-run volunteer groups and local organizations in Westerville.
Rachel Scherzer, an AmeriCorps Vista at Otterbein, organized the event. She said that this year Pac the Mac has evolved to include different projects other than just packaging of macaroni and cheese to help benefit local groups.
"Martin Luther King was an activist who was involved and interested in serving the community and in helping people who were in living in poverty," said Scherzer. "We are continuing that legacy by activating our students to be involved in something."
The Center for Community Engagement partnered with the Westerville Area Resource Ministry (WARM) and the Church of the Master to complete service projects that would be donated to local children in food insecure homes and homeless shelters.
Stacey Rusterholz, the Assistant Director of the Center for Community Engagement, was excited about the number of students that volunteered.
"One of the things that I think that Otterbein does best is work with our community partners," said Rusterholz. "I think that it is really valuable for students to be able to see those relationships and grow those relationships and we want to support the great things they are already doing."
Students like Gavin Terry, junior business management major, packaged trail mix to donate to WARM for their Share Bac A Pac program that feeds food insecure children on the weekends, when they cannot receive free or reduced lunch from their school.
Terry said he was more than happy to help give back to children in the area who are not sure when they will eat their next meal.
"I came out to volunteer because I realized how fortunate I am and I realized that I should give back to the community and other less fortunate," said Terry.
Members of the Church of the Master came to educate students on homeless shelters in the area and taught students how to make "plarn," plastic cut into yarn-like-pieces to be woven into makeshift mattresses that are given to shelters.
Students were also given the opportunity to write empowering letters to local middle schools through the Girls Club program ran by Haylie Schmoll, junior public relations major.
Schmoll said the event offered students an easy way to give back. "[Students doing service] happens every day, not just MLK day. Otterbein has a strong mission and core values about giving and students really embody that and everything that they do," said Schmoll.
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