Online students, alumni volunteer with Serve DC event

In collaboration with Liberty University’s second annual Serve Lynchburg Day, the university sponsored its first-ever Serve DC event Saturday, a day of service where students and faculty met at the nation’s capital to create positive change in the name of Christ.

The service opportunity was targeted especially for alumni and online students who live in or near the Washington, D.C., area. Similar to Serve Lynchburg, Serve DC gave participants a way to impact their local community.

“After last year’s Serve Lynchburg, we were thinking how we could better engage the online student body and alumni in the event,” said Wes Huffman, state engagement coordinator for

LU Serve. “We came up with Serve DC because we have a large number of alumni and online students up there, and now they don’t have to travel to Lynchburg to be a part of this.”

Serve DC volunteers were split up between five different partnering organizations in the Washington, D.C., metro area: Bread for the City, the Salvation Army, Pillar Church of Woodlawn, Veritas City Church and So Others Might Eat.

In Georgetown — a neighborhood located in the northwest part of the district — Liberty Resident Assistant Bri McKinney led a group of volunteers and local children in a prayer walk around the area, in collaboration with Veritas City Church.  They interacted with residents, handing out water bottles and food to those in need. They stopped at various points in the city to pray for the people of Washington D.C.

“It was especially encouraging to be able to stop walking for a moment a just pray together and really see the faith grow in these younger kids that were with us,” McKinney said. “Some of the younger kids in our group told us that they really didn’t know how to pray, and so it was amazing to be able to show them how we usually do it and how we build conversations with other people.”

Just south of Washington in Alexandria, Va., volunteers, assisted the Pillar Church of Woodlawn in hosting a block party with food and games for local families. The event catered to several military personnel in the area who are located at the neighboring Fort Belvoir Army Base.

“It was so cool to meet some of the online students in the area and help them become more involved in the community that they know and live in, and we were able to meet a lot of the soldiers and their kids and got to minister to them as well,” said Kevin Brouillette, director of children’s ministry for Liberty’s Campus Serve. “It was overall an amazing experience.”

For students who want to participate in service opportunities across the globe, LU Serve can help in connecting with a variety of international service opportunities and other domestic service projects.