UMSL MLK Day of Service Volunteers Visit St. Vincent Home

UMSL MLK Day of Service volunteers flock to 11 sites across St. Louis

January 16, 2018 | from UMSL Daily | Posted by Sara Bell

In a previously unusable classroom within St. Vincent Home for Children, a group of volunteers gather to reflect on their handiwork. The Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve,” remains in the background as a reminder of the inspiration behind their volunteer efforts. (Photos by August Jennewein)

In a crowded hallway amidst the chaos of cleaning, Brian Moats couldn’t help but pause for a moment to express his gratitude for a few of the opportunities in his life – access to an affordable college education and the ability to work with peers to try to pass that good fortune on to others.

Combine those experiences into one morning, particularly a day honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., and it provided just one more reason to be grateful.

UMSL student Audrey Taylor (at back) and GlobalHack employees Chance Grannan and Beth Casagrand organize a library for St. Vincent Home for Children.

For Moats and about 180 other volunteers, that’s exactly what the University of Missouri–St. Louis’ 10th Annual MLK Day of Service offered.

At 11 sites spread across the St. Louis region, a collection of UMSL students and employees as well as community members spent Monday morning painting, organizing, tutoring and helping with a variety of other activities.

“We’re really lucky to have the opportunity to be going to college and a lot of us on scholarships,” said Moats, a business management major who volunteered at St. Vincent Home for Children. “Any time you have the chance to give back, I feel like that’s really important because not everyone has as many opportunities.”

At St. Vincent, volunteers cleaned and organized a previously unusable library as well as a classroom. The team also prepared rows of lockers, giving a new space for clients to store personal belongings.

“St. Vincent Home for Children is helping kids, which is good because I feel like that’s the future,” Moats said. “We were there not that long ago, and this is something that we can do to help them have a better chance at having the opportunities that we have had.”

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