ARKADELPHIA – Ouachita Baptist University’s Elrod Center for Family and Community will host Tiger Serve Day on Saturday, Sept. 21. The semi-annual campus-wide service initiative is held every semester as an opportunity for students, faculty and staff to serve the broader Arkadelphia community. The Tiger Serve Day theme for the 2019-2020 academic year is “Doing Good.”
“Service is a key component of the Ouachita experience,” said Judy Duvall, associate director of the Elrod Center. “Our students are encouraged to make service an integral part of their college life, and Tiger Serve Day is one way they can do this.”
Participants can sign up as individuals or form teams from friend groups, social clubs, ministries, athletic teams and other campus organizations. Volunteer teams then gather on Saturday morning to eat breakfast together before heading to their respective projects, ranging from raking yards and trimming bushes to washing cars and cleaning windows, or even helping with small indoor jobs.
“Volunteers are able to provide a service to individuals who many times are not able to do the work themselves and, at the same time, build important relationships with those served,” Duvall added.
The Tiger Serve Day Leadership team organizes the event, prepares the publicity, visits all of the projects and people who will be served, recruits volunteers and prepares the tools that will be needed for the estimated 800 volunteers and 100 service projects.
“They work amazingly hard to ensure that those who volunteer have a well-organized plan to execute,” said Ian Cosh, vice president for community and international engagement and director of the Elrod Center.
“Preparation for Tiger Serve Day requires five to six weeks of work and lots of prayer in the process,” said Taylor Fielder, a junior Christian studies/biblical studies, Christian theology and Christian missions triple major from Little Rock, Ark., and member of the Tiger Serve Day Leadership Team. “It is a full and exhausting day, but it is so worth it considering we have the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our community!”
“This day gives our campus a practical way to live out our Christian faith following in the example of Jesus, who ‘came not to be served but to serve and give His life away,’” Duvall said.
For more information on Tiger Serve Day, visit www.obu.edu/serve or call the Elrod Center at (870) 245-5320.