Natalie Daniels

If you look up community in Merriam-Webster dictionary, you will get this definition: “a group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood.” Here at the SMCC Midcoast campus, when we think of community, we think of our neighbors and what we can do to help them and of what we can do increase our success.

It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child. On our campus we each play a vital role in helping one another. This week on campus, the Student Activities Board organized some Valentine’s Day card making crafts for our neighbors at Coastal Landing retirement community. We provided the students with cookies, strawberries, stickers, glitter, and paper in order to craft a personalized card for each resident in the home. Our goal was to spread cheer to our surrounding neighbors.

During the process of card making, I began to spark up some conversations with the students about community outreach and how open others would be to employing a little more community involvement around our campus. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a vast number of students already performed some sort of community volunteer work. Students who had never volunteered before were happy to give away a Saturday once a month to volunteer their time and their conversation at the Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program.

Throughout the week the conversations began on homelessness and helplessness and what role we each contribute to society. One student spoke of making her final project on homelessness, she crafted a plan to live homeless for a few days in order to have not only a better understanding, but to shed some light on the living conditions of those who are currently living as such. Another student spoke of their volunteer work at one retirement community and how appreciative the residents were when they would arrive to read or talk.  

My personal experience as a volunteer at the local soup kitchen is that we are all in need at some point. Whether we need someone to talk to or someone to show they care, we appreciate just knowing that some is there. At the Midcoast Campus we are all one big family. If you walk into the learning commons, you will hear several different conversations going on at once. The new students are talking to the veteran students about what should be expected their first semester as college students.

You will often find some students in the café conversing with the staff there, who might I add are fantastic at just listening to any student complaining about their morning. Our front office staff that will make time to walk into their office and converse with a student who is having a hard day or hard break up. While most are employees, they are not counselors or our best friends, but they do care and that is important to have in a community. Our campus may be a little small, but there is a lot of community and heart in our community college. That’s a nice little positive note on our midcourt campus!