A trio of students stood outside the Chick fil a, one holding a sign for GSW’s Day of Giving. Eli Prince, a chemistry with prepharmacy major and a sophomore at GSW originally from Cairo, talked about its significance.
“It’s our GSW day of giving. We have a couple restaurants around town. Some of the proceeds go to our school to help fund scholarships.”
Another GSW student, Makayla Chavous, originally from McDonough, gave more background.
“Today we’re out here for GSW’s day of giving in which a lot of the local restaurants here are going to donate a part of their proceeds to the school to help fund projects on the campus, help fund some of the scholarships there and fund some of the other programs as well, and then also if anyone would like to donate more than just the proceeds that come from the restaurants, they can go on the website that we have, and also if they go to the restaurants, some of them have boxes for them to put cash and donate that way also.”
She mentioned some of the restaurants participating.
“Carter’s Fried Chicken is participating now, I think they’ll also be participating at lunch. I know LaHa is participating at lunch, Rosmary and Thyme, they are participating for dinner. Pat’s Place along with Sweet Georgia Bakery, Roman oven is participating for dinner.”
She talked about their reason for thanking people outside the restaurant.
“We’re all a part of the President Jimmy Carter Leadership Program, and so that comes with a scholarship, so that will help fund the scholarship, along with funding other things that we as a program participant in.”
Participants engage in a variety of volunteer experiences, including the Food Drive in Plains. Chavous described her experience.
“It’s been really good. Its super fun to just get out there and help. We work with the local church there and the people there are just super sweet and show compassion for us and are grateful for our help.”
Chavous mentioned another experience.
“In February, we helped volunteer with the Night to Shine, which is hosted at the local church, and it’s basically the Prom for special needs. A lot of us do different volunteer opportunities on campus. Any time there is an event on campus, and they need help with set-up or just running the event, we’ll volunteer with that. I personally volunteer with the health clinic once a week.”
Prince mentioned another volunteering experience.
“We do a toy drive for Christmas with CASA. We’ll get different fund-raising opportunities, trying to get money to raise support, just buying the toys, but then we encourage people to donate toys for the toy drive, and last year was actually a really good turn-out. We made a good amount of money and had a lot of toys donated for CASA.”
He restated the main goals of the Jimmy Carter Leadership program.
“It’s main thing is volunteering, that and leadership.”
Chavous summed it up.
“Building the community at GSW, building the community around GSW. So being leaders for the community, making a change, making a difference.”