Students Serve Lynchburg in yearly event

Every year, over 1,000 Liberty University students fulfill the needs of the local community through Serve Lynchburg, an effort championed by Liberty’s LU Serve office. 

Senior Director of LU Serve Steve Gillum said the event has grown exponentially over the last eight years since its inception, with a significant number of new partner organizations and trainings for site leaders added annually. He said the global volunteer event, Serve the City, inspired the idea for Serve Lynchburg; Liberty students, faculty and staff are all invited to choose one of the 98 local sites and engage with the greater Lynchburg community. 

“This event is an incredible opportunity for students to come together with the Liberty community to make an impact in one day with their peers,” Gillum said. “For many, this is the first time they have engaged with Lynchburg’s culture and community needs.” 

While many of the sites’ efforts remain close to home, some organizations such as World Help share their work across the world. Students who served with the global team sorted through donations of brand-new clothing from companies, folding and packaging them by size so volunteers across the globe can easily minister to those in need.  

“I thought it was cool how World Help is able to give a worldwide impact to what we were doing,” sophomore Kaeley Whitacre said. 

Students who volunteered with World Help were able to anticipate the future impact of their work. Over 14,000 shirts and sweatshirts were folded and packed in just one day for recipients in Zambia and Peru. 

Additional sites included Eagle Eyrie Conference Center, Parkview Community Mission, Lynchburg Grows and Bedford Pregnancy Center. Alongside these LU Serve partnerships, students provided basic landscaping, cleaning, painting, organizing and an endless number of other tasks.  

Serve Lynchburg has flourished over the past decade as a way for students to give back to the community they live in throughout their college years. 

LU Serve offers numerous additional opportunities to support communities locally and internationally throughout the year. For more information go to https://www.liberty.edu/osd/lu-serve/. 

Twitchell is a News reporter.