Community remembers 9/11, provides service events
The Center for Academic and Global Engagement (CAGE) hosted a 9/11 Day of Service event at the welcome table event Monday evening.
The welcome table is a service event at the United Methodist Church that hosts a free meal for community members every Monday evening, and different organizations and groups can volunteer to prepare and serve the dinner.
Kim Albracht, assistant director for academic engagement at CAGE said the event Monday evening brought community members together.
“9/11 day of service and remembrance is a national day (that) we felt that doing community service in Vermillion was important for our students,” Albracht said. “We chose the welcome table because it really does emphasize community and brings people together to enjoy a meal together (and) to serve food.”
Albracht said that the event is a good way for students to meet other members of the Vermillion community.
“It’s an opportunity for students to come talk to people that they might not encounter during the day here on campus since it’s our other community members there,” Albracht said.
Before they served at the welcome table, CAGE prepared the meals. The food came from the Food Recovery Network, Aramark and local grocery stores.
Albracht said that the goals of CAGE are to provide students with service and learning, community engagement and becoming active citizens. This is the first year that there has been a 9/11 welcome table event hosted by CAGE.
“This has been the first year that we decided to go to the welcome table. Normally we have focused on doing service on the Tuesday on the actual 9/11 day,” Albracht said. “The Monday evening is a nice opportunity. We know there’s a lot of students that go to the welcome table to volunteer so we thought this would be an opportunity to not only use those regular volunteers but also introduce new students to it.”
Jennifer Kenaston, sophomore marketing major and secretary of AWOL said that this was her first welcome table event and she said she was interested in doing it again in the future.
“I think it’s important to be at the welcome table because I’m actually on the AWOL exec board so I get to see the direct impact on our organization but also through the community more specifically,” Kenaston said.
Kenaston said that people should look and see how the events of 9/11 affect the Vermillion community.
“I think that 9/11 kind of gets focused on where it specifically happened and I think it’s important to see the impact that not only to had in South Dakota but in Vermillion,” Kenaston said. “Kids don’t get to see the kind of veterans and the community that surrounds campus, so I think it’s really important for them to see the demographics that are actually in our community and the people that are affected by the event.”
Jeff Garreans, senior international relations major and ROTC S-4, said remembering 9/11 is important because it allows for remembrance of those who are serving.
“(It’s) not just to remember the people who are currently serving, but to remember those who came before us. All of the people who have been wounded, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is a result of 9/11,” Garreans said. “For the military, it’s important to know that we’re out there trying to make sure things like that don’t happen again.”
