Martha Peake (right) takes a moment to speak
with one of the service representatives

Erskine Welcomes Community Service Organizations To Campus

Erskine College hosted a service fair today in Watkins Student Center with 47 organizations and agencies represented. Erskine students queued for a chance to visit the many display tables set up in Watkins, and were joined by a number of high school students from Dixie, Crescent, Pendleton, T.L. Hanna, and Westside public high schools and also from Cambridge Academy and Greenwood Christian School.

Due West Retirement Center Director and Erskine alumnus Paul Bell said that at this year's Service Fair, "We've had more students sign up to volunteer than in any previous year."

Freshman and E.B. Kennedy Scholar Nikki Knox was one of those signing up at Bell's table. She said she had worked with Meals on Wheels in her hometown of Union and enjoyed elderly people. "We can learn a lot from them," she said.

Nancy Wrenn, of Piedmont Agency on Aging, who was at the Service Fair hoping to sign up Meals on Wheels volunteers, was surprised that some of the students had already worked with Meals on Wheels in their hometowns. Her agency also sponsors an intergenerational daycare program, offering volunteers an unusual opportunity for service. "We have both the elderly and young children and it works out really well," she said.

Senior Livia Stephens of North Augusta signed up to help the Greenwood Soup Kitchen, and freshman Hannah Collier of Columbia put her name down for two organizations, the Due West Retirement Center and the Connie Maxwell Children's Home. "If I can do both I will," said Collier. "I'm certainly going to try."

Michael Moss of the American Cancer Society, happy to have his sign-up sheet full of volunteers for the Society's Relay for Life, said,"We would love to have a relay right here on the Erskine campus."

Jessie Potts, a freshman from Chapin, signed up to volunteer at the Bowers-Rogers Home for Abused Children , as did freshman Ashley Wilson of Charleston. Wilson also signed up to volunteer at the Connie Maxwell Children's Home. Wilson said she had worked with Interact in high school, but this kind of volunteering will be a new experience for her.

Ben Alexander of Central, a freshman, said he chose the Connie Maxwell Children's home "because I am the oldest of seven and I like working with children." His previous volunteer experience includes working overseas with children from orphanages in the Ukraine.

Kelli Lamb, a freshman from Lake Wales, Florida, signed up for the Due West Retirement Center. "I have worked at Camp Joy," Lamb said, referring to a camp for disabled young people at Bonclarken Camp and Conference Center in Flat Rock, N.C. "This will be a little different."

Amanda Gamble, a freshman from Hampden, Maine, who works in the Career Services Office, which is sponsoring the service fair, said, "We are hoping every student will sign up for at least one activity – that's our goal."