High Point, NC -- High Point University students, faculty and staff honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by volunteering more than 2,000 hours of service to more than a dozen service projects on campus and around the city of High Point.

The HPU community continued the university’s annual tradition of treating Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a “day on, not a day off” despite freezing temperatures that brought winter weather to the area.

Hundreds of volunteers from across campus impacted the lives of thousands of people around the globe through their service. Volunteers took part in service projects ranging from filling 20,000 packets of vegetable seeds in the Slane Student Center to painting a hallway inside Southwest Guilford Middle School.

In addition, HPU’s Workman School of Dental Medicine provided free dental care to veterans, teachers and first responders at two HPU Health locations in Asheboro and Durham, N.C.

"From the seed-packing event at Slane Student Center to the Growing High Point event on Washington Street, I am able to witness students, faculty and staff just pour their heart and soul into providing residents of this city with seeds that they can grow in their own homes and grow food,” said Lovelle McMichael, assistant director of HPU’s Center for Community Engagement. “From the backpacks that we’re giving away to local students to the warm winter coats that we’re giving to young children, to be able to go to school and know that they don’t have to stand in the cold without a coat is so important. High Point University students understand the importance of giving back and making sure that they are living the service that we honor here at High Point University."

HPU students, faculty and staff volunteer 500,000 hours of service every year. As a result, HPU was recently selected as one of just 40 colleges and universities in the nation to receive the Carnegie Foundation Classification for Community Engagement for this year.

It marked the first time HPU has received the prestigious award, which recognizes higher education institutions that are making significant strides in finding ways to engage with community partners, build on community assets and address a wide array of community challenges.

“Students at HPU are generous with their time and with their talents, and I'm grateful to be a part of such a caring community,” said Hannah Parson, president of HPU’s Student Government Association.

That caring spirit was evident on Martin Luther King. Jr. Day.

A Day On, Not Off

Only a short drive from HPU’s campus, a group of students gathered inside Southwest Guilford Middle School to paint the hallway for seventh graders from a dark green to a more appealing white.

“It’s in our HPU values. We like to serve. We like to give back, and while it is a day off, we get the ability and the opportunity to help,” Robert Hudson, a junior biology major from Roswell, Georgia, said while taking a break from painting the middle school.

Monique Wallace, the seventh-grade co-principal at Southwest Guilford Middle School, said several of the HPU students who volunteered to paint the hallway attended the school when they were younger. She said her current students will be surprised when they return from the long holiday weekend and find their hallway freshly painted.

“Our seventh graders really do take pride in their classrooms,” said Wallace, who’s pursuing her PhD from HPU’s Stout School of Education. “And just for them to come back and see that there were people who they may never meet, college students that came back and are giving back in this way, it’s going to just be a spirit and the morale lifter for them as well as the staff and teachers.”

Meanwhile, the basketball court inside the Slane Student Center was transformed into a large assembly line as nearly 600 students volunteered with the nonprofit organization Rise Against Hunger to fill 70,000 meals for students in developing countries.

Students filled stacks of plastic bags with rice, soy protein, a vegetable mix and vitamin sachets. They had a goal of filling 325 boxes with bags of food in one day.

Jason Haulbrook, regional director for Rise Against Hunger, said one box of food is enough to feed a student in a developing country for an entire school year. He added that the 70,000 meals that students worked to fill was the highest number of meals that the HPU community has ever packed at one time for Rise Against Hunger.

“I think people inherently want to serve, want to do what’s right and want to do what’s good. I think honoring Dr. Martin Luther King on this day of service, obviously that inspires those that are maybe sometimes on the fence,” Haulbrook said. “Typically, if you could get a few students to come out, it kind of generates some excitement, and that encourages more excitement. So I love coming to universities and high schools even just because you’re essentially having students pack for students, which is such a cool correlation to make.”

Celebrating Dr. King through Worship

As part of the tradition to honor Dr. King, HPU also held the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Worship Service in Hayworth Chapel on campus. The keynote speaker was Rev. Dr. Cynthia Hale, founder and senior pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia.

Hale reminded the audience that Dr. King’s dream lives on more than a half-century after his death. She challenged each person to reflect on and pursue their own dreams to make the world a better place.

“Martin Luther King was a man born to be a bridge to bring all people together regardless of their race, creed, color or culture,” Hale told the crowd. “…You may kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream. The dream that Martin dared to have didn’t originate with him. It came from God, who has designed his plan for a just world so that each of us gets a piece of the dream to make it so.”

Hale reflected on the struggle of today’s world, including wars raging in different countries, children continuing to be born into poverty and Americans still struggling with homelessness.

“So, what are your dreams?” she asked the audience. “What are the visions in your head and heart concerning your future? When I talk about dreaming, I’m talking about those strongly desired goals to be achieved, those distinctive hopes and images dancing around in your imagination, stirring up your passion, setting your soul on fire and giving you the power to do whatever God says you can do. Every one of us has the ability to dream. It doesn’t matter who you are and where you came from, what age or stage you happen to be in life, what you have or have not accomplished at this point in your life. To dream is a gift of God to those who have been created in his image and his likeness with purpose and unlimited possibility. Each of us has the ability to dream great dreams and make them come true, to see a vision for your life that will make this world in which we live a better place. So, what are you dreaming about?”