MCC faculty work hard to pull up the weeds to improve the garden at Northeast Elementary for My College Cares Day Tuesday morning.

Meridian Community College was empty Tuesday morning as students and staff spent  time giving back to the community.

Instead of spending the day in classrooms, faculty and students read to youth, planted flowerbeds and played music for retirement home residents during MCC’s annual My College Cares Day.

“My College Cares is a long-standing tradition that I had a chance to experience 20 years ago as a student,” said Brandon Dewease, MCC’s associate dean for student engagement.

“It’s important that we have experiences larger than ourselves, our interests, and our studies,” Dewease added. “Having students be a part of this event gives them exposure to new ideas, new places, new people, and new causes, things that maybe they wouldn’t have found without an event of this nature,” 

A few faculty showed off their gardening skills by plucking weeds and picking vegetables at the Love and Peas Community Garden.

“It’s just really important to give back because the community gives so much to us,” said Callie Pinson, the administrative assistant for workforce development and grants. “I feel like we should do this multiple times a year. This is the best feeling in the world to be able to give back to the community.”

Pinson wasn’t the only volunteer getting her hands dirty as MCC student Laura Rutledge was just down the road at Northeast Elementary, sprucing up the flowerbeds in the school’s courtyard.

“Today has been going great, and we’ve made a lot of progress getting this area a little cleaner and getting some natural enrichment here,” Rutledge said. “Plants are excellent for the mind, so I really think it’ll brighten their eyes to the beautiful things that are in the world.”

“I’ve lived here for almost my entire life, and it’s good to put back into the people that are eventually going to run this community, and we are teaching them that there are good things in the world to look forward to,” Rutledge added.