Liberty Students Serve Lynchburg in Weekend Initiative

More than 2,000 Liberty students, faculty, staff and alumni took to the city of Lynchburg Friday, April 20, and Saturday, April 21, to serve alongside over 80 local organizations, share the love of Christ and support their community at Serve Lynchburg.

“Christ’s love and his example was of humility — he was the greatest example of humility and sacrifice when he died for us,” Jessica Yoder, one of four group leaders serving at the Lynchburg Humane Society, said. “And so, carrying that (example) out means we sacrifice our time, our energy and our talents and show Christ’s love by putting these out into the community.”

This year’s Serve Lynchburg was the second annual event of its kind. An additional serve day was added on Friday this year to allow for a bigger impact on the community as well as to allow students and professors to work side by side.

According to Chad Nelson, director of LU Serve — Local & Domestic Engagement, Serve Lynchburg is more than just a one-day event for students to help their community. The event is a starting place for students to learn their role in the Lynchburg community.

“For Serve Lynchburg, it really serves as a catalyst for students,” Nelson said, “It is this one-day massive service initiative, but the idea is to get to know these organizations that we are helping out and see how you might want to help them out on a repetitive basis.”

Another new facet to this year’s event, according to Nelson, was a sister event held in Washington D.C. known as DC Serve — an event aimed at allowing both alumni and students attending the Washington Fellowship to serve their communities.

Yoder believes that Serve Lynchburg is a good opportunity to get outside of campus and become a part of the Lynchburg community.

“I think it’s important, because I don’t ever want us to get into the mindset that we’re just here in this Liberty bubble to only grow within the university,” Yoder said. “I think its great that we have the opportunity to do that, but I think its important that we grow where we are planted and so we impact the community, and I think Serve Lynchburg is such a great opportunity to do that.”

This year was Yoder’s second year being involved in Serve Lynchburg. As a resident shepherd on campus, Yoder heard about the opportunity to be a leader with Serve Lynchburg and seized the opportunity to help the Lynchburg community.

“I think serve Lynchburg opens students minds to the fact that we are a community, (and) Lynchburg is not just Liberty,” Yoder said. “Lynchburg is its own city… and there are people here that really need help, (as well as) many organizations and businesses, and I don’t think we realize the impact we can make if we get out of our comfort zone and get involved.”

Nelson believes that Serve Lynchburg is a confirmation to the community of Lynchburg that Liberty is a part of the community too.

“Liberty exists inside this larger framework called Lynchburg and the greater Lynchburg area,” Nelson said. “Serve Lynchburg is recognition that there is a lot to the surrounding area that transcends Liberty, in a sense. (There are) various needs and initiatives going on and Serve Lynchburg says that we recognize those, and we want to support those.”