Wayland students demonstrate degree of difference

Posted: 10/05/07

Wayland students
demonstrate degree of difference

By Teresa Young

Wayland Baptist University

PLAINVIEW—Students and staff from Wayland Baptist University fanned out across Plainview to paint the town—literally—during Degree of Difference Day.

Volunteers worked at 21 sites to help local agencies and churches by offering free labor for the day.

Teams worked in cleanup efforts at the city cemetery, a home location of Allegiance Behavioral Health Center and two agencies of the Central Plains Center, which needed floor waxing, buffing, carpet cleaning and some paint work.

Katrina Smith, director of information technology at Wayland Baptist University, paints a room in the College Hill Daycare Center.

They trimmed trees at the Girl Scout Hut and pulled weeds at Plainview Christian Academy. Students joined a major cleanup effort in east Plainview, where members of the Pioneer basketball team and others joined Primera Iglesia Bautista in an effort to beautify that neighborhood.

Others applied paintbrushes and rollers to walls around town, helping paint the James Hearn Activity Center at Happy Union Baptist Church, the College Hill Daycare Center, the Wee Care Child Care Center, the Whiteaker Center, the Compassionate Care Pregnancy Center, Habitat for Humanity, Jericho Fellowship Church and other locations.

A group joined members of churches in painting and beautifying the 18th and Houston site of the new Chalice Christian Church, which shares space with Good Samaritan Pentecostal Church.

The Flying Queens women’s basketball team and members of the Pioneer Baseball team stayed close to home for the day, helping paint trim on Wayland’s married student housing duplexes and doing cleanup and weeding in some areas.

A choir group gathered at the Museum of the Llano Estacado for some cleanup, as well. One team visited a local nursing home, playing the guitar and visiting residents, painting nails for female residents if they desired. Still another team worked with Plainview Main Street to stain planters that will be used to beautify the downtown area, and a crew of staff gathered to make lunches and deliver them to the workers.

“This provided an opportunity to share Christ’s love through work and not just talk,” said Jon Clifton, a junior from Sunrise Beach, who was on one of many painting crews for the day. He also noted he enjoyed the fellowship with other students and faculty.

“To know that we helped out in bettering our community feels really good,” noted Rosemary Ribera, a freshman from Canyon who served on the crew with Main Street, painting vases.

Though the work was hard at times and dirty with all the painting involved, students enjoyed the bonding time and helping community agencies.

“Today showed me that with hard work you can accomplish anything,” said Joe Brown, a freshman from Sugarland and a member of the Pioneer basketball team who worked in East Plainview. “When we first got here the weeds were taller than me and in abundance. With hard work we cleared it out.”

“I really enjoy getting out into the community and serving,” noted Lisa Hamilton, a senior from Slaton who painted in various locations. “Although I am covered in paint, I am excited and would love to go do some more.”

Joanne Jacob, a junior from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, concurred, summarizing the feelings of many about the work day.

“It feels good to know that whether you work with someone face-to-face or behind the scenes such as painting or doing dirty work, you’re still making a difference in someone’s life by filling a need,” she said. “I absolutely loved getting dirty with paint this year. It was so much fun!”

Besides the efforts in Plainview, some of Wayland’s external campuses joined in the effort, planning service projects for the week before Degree of Difference Day.

The Lubbock campus sold Wayland T-shirts to raise money for a Diabetes Walk held in that city, and the Amarillo and Albuquerque campuses held blood drives in conjunction with local blood centers.

The campus in Fairbanks, Alaska—housed on Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwrigh—has planned a collection drive for November to send supplies to troops deployed overseas.

For the third Degree of Difference Day—slated for October 2008—organizers hope to involve Wayland alumni wherever they live in service efforts to their own communities.