Samford College Students Donate $79,000 in Service

Eight hundred students dedicate time and labor investing in their community.

Over 800 Samford University students spent their Saturday serving at approximately 35 locations in the Birmingham community on April 14, 2018.

The Independent Sector estimates the national value of each volunteer hour to be $24.69. The 800 students from Samford spent four hours serving at various service sites. This totals the value of their combined service hours to $79,000.

Each year the staff at Samford’s Francis Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership plans a service day, also known as Samford Gives Back. This creates an opportunity for students to meet needs in the greater Birmingham area through service. The Student Executive Director for Samford Gives Back, Morgan Johnson, spoke of the impact behind the day of service. “We don’t want it to be a ‘serve and leave and never look back’ kind of day. We want to remind students the importance of cultivating relationships in thier community.”

Stephen Black, founder of Impact America and Director of the Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility at the University of Alabama, gave a lecture to the 800 students before they went into the community to serve. Samford student Brach Chilson talked about the inspiration she received after hearing Black’s speech. “Being an education major and hearing his message about our call to serve others really resonated with me because service is something that I am able to implement into my career after graduating from college.”