Nearly 900 Tusculum College students, faculty, and staff provided more than 4,250 cumulative hours Wednesday in service to the community.

Wednesday was the annual, campus-wide "Nettie Fowler McCormick Service Day," in which the college community commits a day to service projects in Northeast Tennessee.

Coordinated by Tusculum's Service-Learning Center, projects were completed at 29 sites in Greene County, seven in Johnson City, and two in Kingsport as well as on campus.

The types of service varied from conducting a "point in time" survey that counted the number of homeless in certain areas to helping landscape around a school to debating medical professional issues with a health sciences class at the Greeneville-Greene County Center for Technology.

The schools, community agencies, and non-profit organizations for which projects were completed were very appreciative of the work that was being done. "It is a huge help for us," said John Hendrix, director of the Nathanael Greene Museum, where students painted a room to be used for a permanent exhibit of Greene County's African-American history and heritage. "It is a great way to get a lot of work done in a very short time."

Students also painted the a hallway on the lower level of the building, the location of the by Main Street: Greeneville office, helping to spruce up the building for a dinner later in the year.

Another museum that received service from TC students was Johnson City's Hands-on Museum, where art students taught by Tom Silva at the college helped paint a background for an upcoming exhibit about dinosaurs, and did other artistic work around the building.

Terri Rymer, principal at Tusculum View Elementary School, said the benefit of having the students at the school was two-fold. "We love getting a lot of work done that might not get done, but the best part of the whole day is that our students get to interact with the college students, to play with them at recess and eat lunch with them," she said.

The college students briefly played games with the students after lunch, but spent most of their time painting playground equipment, installing railroad ties around a portion of the playground, clearing brush from the edge of the playground, and mulching a trail down to the pond on the school's property that is used for science instruction.

Projects ranged from all physical work, such as restoring forest hiking trails at The Oaks camp of Freewill Baptist Ministries and painting the front porch of the Negro Women's Civic Club to more cerebral projects such as creating Reading Counts quizzes for students at Chuckey Elementary School and working with adult literacy classes through the Greeneville Literacy Council.

Other classes got a mixture of both types of activities, such as a physical education class that traveled to Holston United Methodist Home for Children. There they tutored Beacon School students, cleaned the equestrian facility, built a fence, and cleaned fence rows.

Another such class were two science classes that went to Davy Crockett State Park, where most of the students did landscaping projects, but a few completed a survey of all of the biological life forms in the park. One class as a whole typically undertakes a project, but there are some instances in which more than one class is involved in an activity.

Conducting a special census of the city of Tusculum Wednesday evening was one such multi-class project. One hundred-twenty students from five classes went door-to-door inside the Tusculum city limits to gather the names of people in each household. The project was undertaken at the request of the city, in hopes that the information gathered will an increase in population which may bring more state revenue to the municipality, offsetting a 9 percent cut in the revenues the state shares with local governments.

Other projects involved partnerships with other groups, which was the case for an education class that traveled to the St. James Community Center in Greene County. There, they worked with eighth graders from Nolachuckey Elementary School to collect stories and old photos to compile a history of the St. James, Meadow Creek, Cedar Creek, Cove Creek, and Caney Branch areas.

Although the majority of the projects were in the Greene County area, there were a number in the Tri-Cities area, such as the previously mentioned Hands On! Museum project. Other students helped build a wall and plant flowers at the Dawn of Hope, while another helped clean around the Melting Pot and serve a meal there. In Kingsport, students volunteered at Girls, Inc., and at the Small Miracles Therapeutic Horseback Center.

The Tusculum campus was not neglected as groups worked on several different projects at the Doak House Museum, landscaped at the Tredway Science Building, and made improvements at the softball field.

Leading off "Nettie Day" activities was an assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 2, featuring Sally Causey, Leroy Ripley, and Loida Valesquez, all members of the Community Economic Development Network of East Tennessee (CEDNET). Each of the three speakers talked about the different activities in which they have been involved both in CEDNET and their individual organizations, and how diversity has played an important part of those organizations.

Sally Causey, executive director of Rural Resources in Greene County, said CEDNET has been called a model organization in terms of diversity. "A lot of times, people entering a meeting or going into a class want to be live everybody else … they look for commonality. But, in CEDNET people bring a different attitude. They ask what is different about the other person, not in a bad way, but to learn. Individuals are valued for the different pieces of knowledge they have."

Leroy Ripley, president of the George Clem Neighborhood Association, said the organization, formed to enrich the lives of people living in the Wesley Heights community of Greeneville, has as many members of other races as it does African-American members.

"We have come together as one group of people," he said. In CEDNET, the organization has an opportunity to learn and work with other groups who all share the goal of "making our entire community a better place to be."

Loida Valesquez, who works with the Latino population in Knoxville, said that many people may not realize that the Latino people who have come to this area are already a diverse group of people, representing about 25 countries with different cultures and histories. A Latino Task Force of CEDNET has been able to benefit from the knowledge of African-American groups in addressing such issues as banking and housing.

"Nettie Day" began with an inspirational presentation to Tusculum students in the auditorium of the Annie Hogan Byrd Fine Arts Center. Carlyle Walton, president and CEO of Takoma Adventist Hospital, shared with the group his thoughts derived from the biblical Book of James, which focuses on way the doing of good works provides evidence and verification for declarations of faith. One lesson taught by James is that "You are God's answer to those who cry to Him for help," Walton said.

He related a proverb about a man who encountered a ragged, starving, impoverished girl, seeking help, whose plight haunted him and led him that night to cry out to God about why He had not responded to the girl's prayers and pleas. God’s reply to the man was that He had responded – by creating the man and leading him to the girl. Walton also related some of his own personal experiences with service and in seeking to shape a better world, and encouraged students to change the world by focusing not on the "masses" but on individuals. Change comes one person at a time, he said, and service is given in the same way.

Also talking to the group was Tusculum College President Dr. Dolphus Henry, who related the history of McCormick Service Day and discussed how it related to the reasons the college was founded a century before Nettie McCormick herself became active with Tusculum College.

Dr. Jonathan Franz. provost, also encouraged the students and told them that they would make a true difference by the day's service they gave, and that they would make an impression on others based on their behavior – an impression of Tusculum College, their families, their regions, and even college students as a whole.

Tusculum College's service day marks the beginning of the Days of Caring, a program focusing on service opportunities for the whole community. Days of Caring is sponsored by Tusculum College, the Volunteer Center of Greeneville-Greene County and the United Way of Greene County.

View more photos of 'Nettie Day'