“It seems fitting as we approach the 261st birthday of John Marshall that we look to our university’s creed to see how he would want us to celebrate today,” said Matt Jarvis, student body president. “Today, we have the opportunity to celebrate service.”
One such example involved gathering 10 tons of vegetables over four hours to benefit Facing Hunger Foodbank’s 220 partner agencies in the Tri-State region. Following Thundering Serve’s official launch at 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, 20,000 pounds of potatoes were dropped on the campus’ Buskirk Field, where nearly 500 students gathered to bag them for distribution by the food bank.
Through Saturday morning, teams of students from the university’s UNI 100 class helped with various campus cleanup projects and partnered with community organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington Parks and Recreation District, Huntington in Bloom and more.
“I repeatedly say that Huntington and Marshall are in this together and we want to work together to improve both the city and the university,” said Jerome A. Gilbert, Marshall’s president.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture supplied the potatoes, which came from state farmers in Greenbank, West Virginia.
For more information about Thundering Serve, go to www.marshall.edu/studentaffairs.