The Campus Ministry office led a mission trip to Cape Town, South Africa, in 2014, where 10 Campbell students and staff volunteered with Living Hope. (Photo by Kendall Tart.)
BUIES CREEK — For the eighth straight year, Campbell University has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The national distinction recognizes colleges and universities that “support exemplary community service programs and raise the visibility of effective practices in campus community partnerships.”
“I am grateful for our being selected to the President’s 2014 Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll,” said Dennis Bazemore, Campbell’s vice president for student life. “This is an affirmation of the many hours our students, staff, faculty and administrators have put into serving the people of Harnett County and beyond.”
Last year approximately 2,400 Campbell students participated in volunteer, service learning or other community engagement activities, logging 78,000 hours of service.
An example of their activities included volunteering at the Spring Fling, a day camp for people with developmental disabilities that Campbell hosts on campus each year in partnership with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The 2014 camp alone drew 123 student volunteers.
Students also volunteered at sites around the nation and the world. For instance, a group of 10 students and Campus Ministry staff traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, in May 2014 to work with Living Hope. The nonprofit operates several ministries to meet the needs of its local community, including those related to health care, education, economic empowerment, and drug addiction.
The students who participated in the trip to South Africa were “impacted in such a significant way they led a month-long emphasis on campus in October about Living Hope and its ministries through Connections,” said the Rev. Faithe Beam, Campbell’s campus minister.
Throughout October, students in Connections prayed for Living Hope and raised more than $1,100 for the organization. In addition, two students who took the 2014 trip will return to South Africa this summer to serve with the organization again. Another student who graduated this past May also plans to return to the country to teach.
These service opportunities are made possible by Campbell’s Office of Community Engagement, which is part of Campus Ministry. “The office merges the university’s hallmarks of faith, learning and service together to educate, challenge and prepare students to live and act responsibly in this world,” Beam said.
Specifically, the office serves as a clearinghouse for volunteer information and resources and seeks to create opportunities for students, faculty and staff to become involved in the community through meaningful service.
The office, for example, helped connect Andrew Ryan Hall ’15 with several engagement opportunities during his time at Campbell. The May 2015 graduate was part of a small group of students who traveled to Cuba for a mission trip this past spring, and he has volunteered in areas related to hunger and K-12 education. (He also served as the most recent senior class president.) “Mr. Hall has a strong sense of advocacy in the areas of ending hunger and removing educational barriers for children,” Beam said.
In recognition of his commitment to service, Campus Compact, a national coalition of nearly 1,100 colleges and universities that promotes campus-based civic engagement, named Hall a Civic Engagement Fellow. His receipt of the national honor was one of the facts Campbell’s Office of Community Engagement highlighted in its application materials to be considered to the 2014 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
Campbell has been named to the roll, first released in 2006, every year since 2007. That year Campbell students logged a total of 8,500 hours of service. Since then, the number of service hours students have participated in has increased by nearly 817 percent, which Bazemore credits to students increasingly prioritizing service and to the Office of Community Engagement.
“Once again, I am very proud of [the office’s] leadership in community engagement at Campbell,” Bazemore said.
One of the service opportunities Campbell offers highlighted in the application materials for the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is a biennial mission trip to South Africa to work alongside Living Hope, a nonprofit that runs several ministeries. A group of 10 students and staff took the trip most recently in the summer of 2014. (Photo by Kendall Tart.)