Southern has a rich history of community service involvement as students leave campus for half-day projects all around Chattanooga at the beginning of each semester on specific days set aside for volunteering. But for a few hours on September 25, approximately 40 Southern students and professors participated in something different—a drop-in community service project creating no-sew blankets in the student life center.

Dora Desamour, director of the Christian Service program, says she finds great joy in seeing masses of students go out for the larger efforts, but yearned for a way to make service easier and more integrated into everyday life around campus. To that end, she researched and set up this simple event. A representative from Project Linus, the national nonprofit whose mission is to “provide security through blankets” for ill or traumatized children, was on hand to help out and answer questions about the organization.

The student center was bustling with busy volunteers. More than a dozen blankets were put together and donated to local police, fire departments, hospitals, homeless shelters, and relief centers. Students expressed great joy in helping out even though community service credit, a requirement for graduation, was not awarded due to the brevity of this event.

"Making the blankets was easy and fun," said junior graphic design major Carin Bartlett, who helped out for an hour between lunch and afternoon classes. "I liked it so much that I want to do it on my own in the future and donate them myself!"