The group of 18 students, faculty and staff volunteered with Second Harvest Food Bank in Southeast North Carolina to sort and clean donated goods in the first of a series of service trips to the area to assist with Hurricane Florence relief.
On Oct. 25 13 students, three faculty members and two staff members traveled to Second Harvest Food Bank, an organization in Fayetteville, to help with hurricane relief. The service trip was organized by the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement.
After Hurricane Florence devastated eastern North Carolina with heavy rains and high winds, the university began making plans for how it could help those in need. There was a lot of interest in the Elon community about getting involved with hurricane relief, so Mary Morrison, assistant dean of campus life and director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement, reached out to several organizations around the area for service work opportunities. A colleague of Morrison’s at Fayetteville State recommended Second Harvest Foodbank of Southeast North Carolina as the organization had received many donations and needed volunteers to help catalog and sort the contributions.
The Elon group of 18 departed campus for Second Harvest Food Bank at 10 a.m. and returned to campus at 6 p.m., with Aramark partnering in the trip by donating boxed lunches. The volunteers sorted through items donated by churches, organizations and other individuals. The donated items included cleaning supplies, hygiene products, camping supplies, canned food, toys and appliances.
The Elon volunteers were part of an effort to make sure the items were clean, to examine the contents of items and then to repack them for distribution. They also checked if the donated food supplies were in good condition. The group was tasked with grouping items into different categories so that it would be easier for Second Harvest Food Bank to deliver items to the communities they serve.
“It was fun, it was fast moving, and it was a lot of heavy lifting,” Morrison said.
Overall the group packed 14,000 pounds of goods during their time in Fayetteville that will go out to the seven counties Second Harvest Food Bank serves around southeast North Carolina: Bladen, Cumberland, Duplin, Harnett, Hoke, Robeson and Sampson.
Senior Katie Mars, executive director of communication and education for Elon Volunteers!, led reflections throughout the service trip and after it concluded. A discussion on the way to the food bank where the volunteers talked about why they decided to participate was an integral part of the service experience, she said.
“A big part of bridging the gap between just volunteering and actually community engagement and service is the reflection,” Mars said.
Members of the group also spoke about what their role was in helping the Fayetteville community and what social issues they were addressing by working with Second Harvest Food Bank. “I know I am not qualified to take down power lines and clear trees and help to de-flood areas, but I can sort donations and I can clean toys, so what is our role with the strengths that we have and the capabilities we have to give back and work with this community,” Mars said.
Elon plans to maintain a partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank, with the next trip slated for Saturday, Oct. 27 and others to follow. Morrison plans to set up two dates in December, one on a weekday and another on a weekend, when students, faculty and staff can assist with Second Harvest Food Bank. The excursion on the weekday would be so that more staff members could go, since staff members receive 16 hours annually to take off for volunteer work, Morrison said. A first service trip originally scheduled for Oct. 13 was canceled due to Hurricane Michael.
Students, faculty staff can sign up for these service opportunities by filling out this online form. Once you register, the Kernodle Center will be in touch with additional information. Information about future dates will be posted on the Kernodle Center’s website.
Mars said that sustained volunteer work is essential to keeping up a long-term relationship with Second Harvest Food Bank. “If you have an established relationship and you maintain that and you continuously come back, whether that’s the exact same students or the same community of students, it helps to create this idea of we’re here in the long-run for you, we’re here to work with you rather than for you,” Mars said.
Morrison said this effort emphasizes Elon’s commitment to the North Carolina community as the university works to assist those not far from campus. “Clearly, this is in our state, these are our neighbors and they would do the same thing for us,” she said.