The South’s self-proclaimed friendliest campus is getting ready to test that hospitable title in a big way.Around 1,500 volunteers are rolling into town for Habitat for Humanity’s Jimmy Carter Work Project this weekend, and most of them will make Jacksonville State University their habitat for the week.
When the volunteers aren’t busy building 36 houses from the ground up in west Anniston, they’ll be getting their rest in JSU’s dormitories. Four dorms, emptied of students for the summer, will house around 1,000 volunteers. More will park their RVs in the tailgate area near the stadium.
It’s an opportunity to shine that the school’s employees take to naturally, said Bill Meehan, JSU’s president.
“It’s just a wonderful, positive thing for the university to be involved with,” Meehan said. “I’m very proud of all the JSU employees who’ve volunteered their time and been involved with this project.”
A large part of that time has been spent getting the dorms ready for the visitors.
Dennis Christopher’s staff in the Building Services department at JSU normally spends May cleaning the dorms after students leave for the summer.
Usually, they’re getting the buildings ready for several waves of summer camps that use the dorms. This time, instead of high school bands, cheerleaders and other campers, they’re getting ready for a flood of 1,000 volunteers, all at once.
“We’re just trying to make everything look nice for everyone who comes on campus,” Christopher said.
That means stripping and waxing floors, scrubbing showers and giving everything “a good wipe down and a good cleaning,” Christopher said. And all that’s been speeded up a bit for the Habitat project.
When they’re not sleeping in those freshly cleaned rooms, the Habitat volunteers will be working up an appetite at the project site in west Anniston. JSU’s food service contractor, Sodexho, won the bid to feed the workers.
Scott Williams’ entire crew of 60 workers, augmented by another 30 Sodexho employees from units at other Alabama colleges and universities, will prepare thousands of meals every day at JSU’s Jack Hopper Dining Hall. They’ll haul the food three times a day to the project site in Anniston.
Volunteers will munch on sausage and bacon biscuits and pastries for breakfast. Lunch will be deli sandwiches with potato salad and other side items. Dinner will vary daily — pizza is on the menu for one night, barbecue pork for another.
In all, Williams and the Sodexho staff will serve 29,400 meals during the week.
Williams said he’s fed this many people at events in the past, and has even served former President Jimmy Carter before, at an event in Arkansas in 1986, just after he’d joined Sodexho. Still, it’s a big job for him and his staff, he said.
“I’m nervous, but I’m ready for it,” Williams said.
JSU will also host the opening and closing ceremonies and a benefit concert for the project at its Paul Snow Memorial Stadium, as well as a reception for the project’s sponsors at the Gamecock Center.
All the effort from JSU’s faculty and staff has eased the burden on Dana van Ekris, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Calhoun County.
She said the experience and organization of JSU’s people has been a big help.
“As far as facilities go, they’re taking care of it, so we don’t have to handle it,” van Ekris said. “That makes it so much easier on me.”
Joe Serviss, the school’s vice president for institutional advancement, credits the school’s staff and their experience with large events.
“It may be kind of like having homecoming and a parent’s visitation day all at once,” Serviss said. “It’s a little more intense, but we are used to having large numbers of people on campus.”
