Before we decided to move to Jackson, we both did the usual online preliminary research: history of the city, as well as various statistics such as population and crime. After two months down here, Jackson’s slogan: A City with Soul, strikes us as poignantly accurate. To our minds, the concept of “soul” is neither simple nor homogenous. Jackson has grit, it has an underbelly possibly more dangerous than most; but what it also has is an incredible community of individuals, businesses and projects working together to bring out the positive aspects of the city and ameliorate the negative. An example of that within Millsaps’ own campus is the Gleaners program which works to stop food from going to waste and distribute it to those in need.
We heard about the project from fellow student Jayson Porter, a sophomore, who comes to the cafeteria every Friday at 7:30 am to pack up the excess food from that week and transport it to the Gleaners headquarters about 10 minutes down the highway. Gleaners, aka The Volunteers of Gleaners, was started in 1986 by Gloria Martinson, a Jackson resident who wanted to decrease food waste and effectively supply it to various shelters and charities around town. The name “Gleaners” comes from the term “gleaning,” a reference to the collection of leftover crops after a field has been harvested. Millsaps participated in Gleaners a number of years ago, but has only in the last couple of weeks re-committed itself to the project.
Porter invited us to participate in Gleaners last Friday and we gladly complied. It was a bizarre sensation walking through the doors into the cafeteria kitchen, an area not normally open to students. As we did, we realized, yet again, that even the most seemingly simple things always have another side, another reality that we only become aware of when we actively choose to acknowledge it.
Together, with another student, senior Anne Waldrop, we scraped over 250 pounds of cafeteria food into bags and deposited it with the happy volunteers at the Gleaners headquarters. On our way back, Jayson offered to show us around West Jackson, an area we had heard much about but had little experience with ourselves.
Heading west from West Street we drove past an old burger joint, once commonly frequented by Millsaps students. The buildings that came next were mostly businesses, and Jayson explained that efforts were being made to revitalize that street with art and music stores and events. Next we took a left at the train tracks and drove past row after row of abandoned, boarded up houses. However, not all the houses and neighborhoods were in sad states of disrepair: there were many beautiful and brightly painted homes, some of which were constructed by Habitat for Humanity. In these neighborhoods you could see the community that existed on the front porches and in the streets and fields where kids play on sunny days.
Driving back to West Street we saw the fence around the Millsaps campus from another perspective: as one looking at it from the outside, rather than from within. We wondered how the community of West Jackson must feel when they look in at the world of Millsaps separated from them by an iron fence and barbed wire. We asked ourselves what the community of Millsaps owes to the city of Jackson, and how a fence reflects on its motto of community involvement.
We are not quite sure what our next adventure will be. We also do not want to be cut short of any experience anyone feels we should endure. So feel free to visit our blog: http://hankerinthroughthesouth.blogspot.com/2011/01/take-1.html, and leave us a comment! We would love for you to join us too.
>We wondered how the community of West Jackson must feel when they look in at the world of Millsaps separated from them by an iron fence and barbed wire. We asked ourselves what the community of Millsaps owes to the city of Jackson, and how a fence reflects on its motto of community involvement.
ReplyDeleteThe fence went up in the 1980's in response to several violent crimes that occurred on the Millsaps campus. I recall clearly one sexual assault in the Academic Complex building, not late at night, but during daylight hours. The perpetrator of that crime had entered the campus from the west.
We hated the fence when it went up--not only because it is ugly, but also because it interfered with our access to CS's--and look at it today with a sad shake of the head. Yes, it projects an unfriendly appearance, but it is an attempt to control physical access to the campus and is a response to the violent crimes that occurred. The College, after all, does bear some responsibility for the safety of its students and faculty.
The only other response would be for Millsaps to relocate to a less crime-prone area, thus contributing to the problem of White Flight. To stay where they are, albeit behind a ten-foot-tall fence, is a more courageous response and in my opinion does indicate a desire to remain involved in the community.
You might ask yourselves another question: What does the City of Jackson owe to the community of Millsaps, and how does the fence reflect on the mutual dependence they share?