Oscar Bautista
Contributing Writer
“Thanks doesn’t even begin to cover what these students have done,” said Holly Tate, executive drector of HOLLY House, the organization that will receive the monetary portion of the J. Howard Morris and Josephine L. Morris Service Award. Michael Bush ’16, is the recipient of this year’s Morris Award and identified HOLLY House as the organization to donate the financial portion to.
The Wooster Volunteer Network (WVN), HOLLY House Inc. and several seniors, including Bush, gathered on Tuesday in Babcock Formal Lounge to celebrate the volunteer work the seniors performed throughout their four years at the College.
Bush was chosen to represent the HOLLY House workers for the award which recognizes one student and Bush humbly accepted. The student who receives the award is recognized to have excelled in volunteer service through WVN and directs a cash prize to the charity of their choice. Additionally they are the College’s nominee for the national Howard Swearer Student Humanitarian Award.
HOLLY House is a private not-for-profit social service organization that strives to work on the prevention and reduction of homelessness in Wayne County. The organization provides services such as short-term rental assistance, intensive case management and referral to resources and affordable housing. Bush and the other volunteers from the College have been hosting the Camp Out event that helps fundraise for the group.
“[He] really grew with [his] service,” said Gillian Spangler ’16, president of WVN, as she addressed Bush.
“It’s students like him that make organizing worth it all. It’s motivating.”
Bush has been serving the organization since his freshman year at the College. Along with him, Maggie Lankford ’16 and Rachel Lorch ’16, both volunteers at the HOLLY House, joined him at the award ceremony.
“[HOLLY House] both brought me back to a part of me that I lost and it served as an avenue for me to grow in ways that I never expected,” said Bush. “I really learned to care for people just on so many levels from working with HOLLY House.”
Bush plans on working towards a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Delaware and is also working on the creation of several video games and board games.
“I was really able to form a community that made the service and the relationship between the College and the city of Wooster,” said Lorch. “It was fun and rewarding.”
Lorch will be working in the Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio to research and develop eye protection against lasers for pilots.
“These … problems [of homelessness] are bigger than just one person or one organization and it has to be a group effort,” said Lankford. “It is something that we’ve picked up on as we’ve worked in different parts of the community.”
Lankford will travel to Guadalupe in the Caribbean to teach English and will later go to Oklahoma to work with Teach for America.
“Do not underestimate the importance of service,” said Bush, encouraging students into volunteer work. “And do not undersell how much impact you can have on people’s lives. As far as for people who want to serve but don’t know how to get involved, I recommend that they work for the HOLLY House.”