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On Thursday, Oct. 5, students, faculty, staff and campus organization leaders gathered in the Leggett Center at Millsaps College to launch an ambitious new program initiative called “1 Campus, 1 Community,” a multi-year project that will streamline and reinvigorate the College’s historic commitment to serving its neighbors. This campus kickoff celebrated the service hours and high rate of participation that the Millsaps community has devoted to previous volunteer efforts, in part to show how much they have to offer in the future.
Supported in part by a $575,000 Hardin Foundation gift to the Millsaps Faith & Work Initiative, “1 Campus, 1 Community” will develop and deepen partnerships between the College and two sets of partners: the North Midtown Community and the K-12 education community. The Phil Hardin Foundation was established in 1964 to further the education of Mississippians. The Foundation’s grant to the Millsaps Faith & Work Initiative recognizes the Initiative’s success in inspiring today’s top college students to lead lives of long-term meaning and service to others, and provides support for the Initiative’s new effort to prioritize service to the K-12 sector in its programming.
 By better communicating with the College’s neighbors, the campus community will be able to tailor its service to the precise needs that arise among the K-12 community and the North Midtown Community in order to have a deeper, longer lasting impact. In January, a follow-up event to the campus kickoff will bring alumni, board members and community partners to campus to meet with faculty, staff and students. Community partners will give brief presentations to educate the college community about their missions and the needs of Millsaps’ neighbors in proximity and mission, which will lead to small group discussions about how Millsaps can approach these needs.
Dr. Darby Ray, director of the Faith & Work Initiative at Millsaps, comments on the importance of the Hardin Foundation grant: “Thanks to the generous support of the Foundation, the Millsaps College community can focus fresh energies on two of our most important—and needful—neighbors: the K-12 education community, whom I think of as our neighbors in mission, and the North Midtown Community, our neighbors in proximity. Our plan is to listen attentively to the needs and vision of these neighbors and then to respond as enthusiastically, respectfully and effectively as we can. Our overall objective is to join with our community partners to create long-term change both in the hearts of our students and in the lives of our neighbors.”
 “1 Campus, 1 Community” provides new focus, leadership and coherence to Millsaps College’s already impressive community outreach efforts. According to Millsaps President Frances Lucas: “Millsaps College has a long and noble history of working toward social justice and the common good. With the launch of ‘1 Campus, 1 Community,’ we are making new history, writing a new chapter in the story of our relationship to the off-campus community. As President, I am absolutely thrilled about the project and can’t wait to see the fruit it bears.”
Asked about the potential impact of the new program, Millsaps Chaplain Reverend Lisa Garvin notes: “This program will touch every single Millsaps student, and many of our faculty and staff as well. Our greatest hope is that it will not only touch, but genuinely transform, our students’ lives and the lives of our neighbors in need.”
Watch the slideshow presentation given at the launch here.
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