Maple Woods lives the MCC mission through charity and service

Preparing students, serving communities, creating opportunities. Those six words comprise MCC’s mission statement as it strives to educate more and more students in the Kansas City Metro area. The holiday season and new year afforded many challenges and opportunities to live MCC’s mission statement, and Maple Woods stepped up to the plate this year, with faculty, staff and students getting involved in the Northland.

Each year, MCC-Maple Woods adopts several students and their families for the holidays, providing food and gift items. This year, the campus was able to provide holiday trimmings for five students and their families, including two bags of groceries, three large boxes of gifts and wrapping supplies, and about $130 in gift cards. Maple Woods employees went above and beyond this year, providing enough gift cards and donations to adopt another 3 families in addition to the others. The number of students the campus has been able to adopt has gone up each of the last three years, even though financial situations have been tough.

MCC-Maple Woods students took the lead in several projects serving the Northland community – from picking up trash to volunteering at neighborhood charity organizations to supporting other students and their families.

Members of the women’s soccer team, along with the Northland Sports Alliance, participated in the BackSnack program just before the holidays as well. The program provides backpacks full of food to students who qualify for the free and reduced lunches offered by the school districts. Soccer team members helped Harvesters pack donated backpacks full of food to distribute to children at risk of going hungry.

Students became involved in community projects even in spite of rough weather conditions: Alice Zvacek, Samantha Nolker, Kayla Fleshman and Steve Barber, all members of the Upsilon Xi chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for two-year institutions, braved icy cold weather to clean up trash on Highway 152 near the campus.

Along with the students, MCC-Maple Woods employees are undertaking the challenge to support local organizations. The Maple Woods Fitness Center has held several “boot camp” fundraisers throughout the semester to benefit local organizations such as the Northland Therapeutic Riding Center, Synergy Services, and the United Way. Boot camps were also held to raise cash for causes including breast cancer awareness, child abuse prevention and the Special Olympics.

In addition to campus-wide, group and individual efforts throughout the last semester, MCC-Maple Woods students and employees will once again participate in the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 17, 2011. Maple Woods continues to live MCC’s mission by preparing students, both civically and academically, serving communities through hard work and creating opportunities for Northland families and organizations.