Local students participate in Starkville volunteer week

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Volunteers volunteering! Starkville Academy students celebrated Volunteer week by helping out their community.

Students, ranging from elementary to high school, participated in different projects.

Those projects included picking up trash on the side of the roads, helping restock Mississippi State’s food pantry, and sorting clothes at Palmer Home.

High school students shared their experiences throughout the week with the rest of the school at the celebration that was held Friday morning.

“We teach other kids, what is a volunteer, what is community service, what is it to get out and do in our community and we just feel like that is so important. And it starts when they’re young. Learning about giving back to your community,” Emily Lesley, Director of Alumni and Community Relations.

“Just volunteering in general, just gives you really an opportunity to be poured into and to pour into others. And so, you would think that volunteering you’re just giving yourself away and helping others out, but in a way it actually refuels you to give to the community more,” said Memory Shauffield, Starkville Academy Senior.

Starkville Academy partnered with 18 different organizations over the week and completed numerous clean-up projects around the area.

Money was also raised in order to support school programs that normally would have held separate fundraiser events to support themselves.

Staff members hope that Volunteer Week will be a yearly event in the future.