Contact: Kenneth Billings
On Aug. 10, Mississippi State president Mark Keenum officially launches the university's annual Service Dawgs Day, followed by breaking ground on the Maroon Edition Habitat for Humanity home.
Keenum will deliver 8:30 a.m. opening ceremony remarks in the Junction before heading to the Habitat work site [249 Greenwood]. There, he will participate in a ceremonial groundbreaking for a Habitat house that, on completion, will provide a new home to a family of five.
Service Dawgs, an acronym for Donating a Wonderful Gift of Service, is a campus effort that promotes student volunteerism and community service, coordinating projects throughout the year with the Maroon Volunteer Center in the Colvard Student Union. The Maroon Edition house is one of numerous simultaneous Service Dawgs projects on the 10th.
About 250 volunteers, who will be identified by their T-shirts, will work on 18 projects throughout the Starkville community.
Maroon Edition was initiated by the Office of the Provost to engage incoming freshmen and others at MSU in reading the same book as a basis for discussion. "The Painted House" (Dell, 2001), a best-seller by novelist and MSU alumnus John Grisham, was selected as the program's first book.
April Heiselt, an assistant professor of counseling and educational psychology who coordinates Service Dawgs, said incorporation of the Habitat house will help give a better focus to the book's concept of "a painted house."
An estimated 2,000 hours of volunteer service will be required to complete the house, with an expected completion in February 2010.
Following the Aug. 10 kickoff, the Habitat project will require 50 volunteers working Aug. 11-15 in two shifts, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. and 1 - 5 p.m. Beginning Aug. 21, some 48 volunteers will be needed (12 per shift) for four shifts Fridays and Saturdays, 8 a.m. - noon and 1 -5 p.m. Volunteer hours will be limited or cancelled during holidays, based on participation.
Those wishing to volunteer may do so at the Maroon Edition Web site, and donations also are being accepted to defray the cost of building materials. For more information about the Maroon Edition and the Habitat for Humanity project, visit http://www.maroonedition.msstate.edu/ or http://www.starkvillehabitat.com/msu-house/.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.