CIA Fair shows students how they can serve

Jeremy Anderson
MC301 Contributor/Staff

Hundreds of Jackson State University students met with organizations offering service opportunities at the annual Community in Action Fair.

Hosted by the Alice Varnado Harden Center for Service and Community Engaged Learning on Jan. 27, the fair was held in the Student Center Ballrooms.  Students and vendors interacted to learn how volunteering not only helps students fulfill the community service requirement needed to graduate but also positively impacts the community.

50 community partners and agencies were represented with informational brochures and representatives sharing and connecting with students.

Shortly after doors opened, students and attendants were invited to hear this year’s guest speaker, Black Girls Rock Award-Winner, Ty-Licia Hooker.

Hooker began her address with a piece of spoken word, peppered with shades of Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred”, which she wrote when she was just 12 years old.

In what would be foreshadowing to what she would accomplish later in life, the piece expressed what she felt about her community in Oakland, Calif., and how she wished to change it.

As Hooker continued with her chronology to where she is now, she spoke about the prejudices from her college professors and classmates at the University of Pacific and how people from her neighborhood were getting killed. The victims and killers were all between the ages of 14-19. This sparked her journey toward giving back.

At 19 years old, Hooker began hosting children from poor performing schools and impoverished neighborhoods to mentor and expose them to a lifestyle outside of their normal environment. Hooker ran the program and nurtured kids who were written off as people who would not amount to anything good, and inspired them to go to college.

“Community service doesn’t just have to be cleaning up the park … or just volunteering once a day at the Red Cross,” said Hooker. Hooker closed her speech by challenging listeners to find creative ideas to impact communities through community service.

After the inspiring message from Hooker, organizations including: Big Brother Big Sister, Jackson Zoo, Minority Male Leadership Initiative, Girl Scouts, Mountain of Faith Ministries, The Good Samaritan Center,  American Cancer Society, TigerTV, Oakley Youth Development Center, the Human Rights and many others, shared with students how their organizations served the community.

Jill Travillion, a sophomore psychology major at JSU, was a representative for the JSU College of Education Kids Kollege.

“Kids Kollege is basically an after school enrichment program. We help them with homework, we counsel them, we help them in every aspect,” said Travillion.  “Kids Kollege accepts anyone as a volunteer, but preferably education majors.”

Emily Summerlin, Visitor and Membership Services Coordinator for the Mississippi Museum of Art said that students will get a “wide variety” of experience from working with the Mississippi Museum of Art. Students will be able to work with different community events and education programs through this organization.

To add to the diversity of organizations, the South Jackson Eagles, a youth football team was also present at the CIA fair. Founded by Myron McGowan, the team was looking for students interested in coaching, social media and photography for the team.

“If somebody simply wants to help us, but they really don’t know how to find their niche, everybody uses social media …. Just getting likes for our team, I give credit for that,” said McGowan.