This past Friday was the 4th annual ‘Miss America Serves Day’ where volunteers from Miss America Organizations come together and serve their local communities. ARM was honored and blessed to join, once again, with some amazing young ladies (title-holders and volunteers) from the Miss Alabama and Miss Alabama’s Outstanding Teen pageant organizations, and with other volunteer-site-leaders from Auburn United Methodist Church. Together, we served with our friends Ms. Baker, Ms. Morris, and Ms. Sanford in Lee and Macon counties to make their homes warmer, safer, and drier!
While serving at Ms. Baker’s, some of the girls were asked to tell us a little about what Miss America Service Day meant to them and what it’s all about. Ms. Shelby, who studies at Auburn University, said “one of the main aspects of the Miss America Organization is service. It’s really cool to be a part of a group that focuses on giving back to others.” A fellow Auburn University student, Ms. Annie, said; “We all have our personal platforms and we serve our communities individually; but on Miss America Service Day, I like how we all get to come together and serve our local communities as a team, united in our purpose.” Ms. Swatts was also part of the team at Ms. Baker’s. “It’s really nice to see people serving together; and my hometown is very close to here so, it’s very special to me and a high honor to serve my community directly.” Ms. Swatts is Miss Auburn-Opelika Area 2018 and studies at Jacksonville State University.
These amazing young ladies from Miss America Serves did things like dismantling and replacing siding, which required power saws and nail-guns. They also scraped off old paint, re-painted the siding, and caulked around windows. Ms. Tina, one of the crew leaders, mentioned that she was so proud of her crew of servant-leaders and of their servant-hearts, and of all the challenging work they were doing. She smiled as she mentioned how much the girls loved using the power-tools!
In the next county over (Macon), another team of young ladies were serving with Ms Sanford. They repaired her ceiling, replaced decking and shingling on the roof, installed fascia boards. Just down the road from there, yet another team of young ladies was serving with Ms. Morris. These ladies were doing everything from mowing the grass, operating the weed-eater, painting kitchen cabinets, installing and painting baseboards, to replacing ceiling tiles!
When asked about her service day experience, Miss Alabama 2018, Jessica Proctor (despite battling spring-time allergies) was all smiles and cheerful as she shared what Miss America Service Day meant to her. “Service is one of the main reasons I started competing in this organization, so being able to do something that the entire country gets to be a part of and being able to play a small role in helping people (local here to us) is really special for me.” Ms. Morris’ home in Macon Co. was one of five locations where Ms. Proctor was serving over the Miss America Serves weekend. “I get to meet some amazing people right here in Alabama and to be able to help them (the homeowners) out is great and to me, it’s all about the homeowner and it’s really special getting to know Ms. Morris and getting to play a small role in improving her quality of life and her home.”
We are so glad to serve with these young ladies and it’s been an honor for us to partner with these servant-leaders during Miss America Service Day. We believe that we were meant for more and one of our main goals is to help improve the quality of life of our rural neighbors with home repair and showing compassion by extending the love of Christ in all that we do.
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