A total of 718 Ouachita Baptist University volunteers gathered Saturday morning to serve the Arkadelphia community as a part of the university’s 38th Tiger Serve Day.
Hosted each year by OBU’s Ben M. Elrod Center for Family and Community, the semi-annual community service event was first launched in 1997 and has completed more than 75,000 hours in service projects. This year’s theme encouraged volunteers to “Served Your Socks Off.”
The 718 student, staff and faculty volunteers divided into 89 teams and completed 110 projects for the event. Projects varied from trimming hedges and planting flowers, cleaning gutters and painting fences, to window washing and washing vehicles. The projects not only benefit families and organizations around Arkadelphia, but also the students who are able to serve.
“Tiger Serve Day is one of my favorite days of the semester because I love getting to hear the stories of the people we serve. I get to learn more about the people and more about the community of Arkadelphia,” said Maddie Brodell, a sophomore mass communications and graphic design double major from Little Rock, Ark. “Tiger Serve Day is just a great reminder that we are here not only to serve others in this community but to serve the Lord.”
Adam Graves, a sophomore Christian studies major from Texarkana, Texas, and former member of the Tiger Serve Day Leadership Team said, “Having been on both sides of the day, I have a whole new outlook on what the day is all about. It is so awesome to be able to go visit projects and meet and pray with the people.”
“My last Tiger Serve Day was really bittersweet. I was on a team with all of my best friends so it was great getting to spend that time together and serve with them, but it doesn’t feel real that we won’t get to do that again,” explained Anna Kumpuris, a senior mass communications, Christian studies and Spanish triple major from Little Rock, Ark. “I’ve done Tiger Serve Day every semester that I’ve been at Ouachita. I think it’s one of the Ouachita traditions I’ll miss most next year.”
“It is our hope that TSD will help students to develop a lifestyle of service and that they will discover the joy of service,” said Ian Cosh, vice president for community and international engagement at OBU. “If they do that then it means that service will play an important role in their lives well beyond the years they are students at Ouachita.”
For more information on Tiger Serve Day, visit www.obu.edu/serve or call the Elrod Center at (870) 245-5320.
By Ali Robinson // Photos by Grace Finley
Video by Nate Wallace
