Editor’s note: Each day this week the Dispatch will profile a community volunteer as part of National Volunteer Week. National Volunteer Week, April 10-16, is about recognizing volunteers and encouraging others to make a difference in the community.
Inspiration for community service projects can come out of nowhere. For Columbus High School senior Jessica Verdell, a magazine article inspired her to provide prom dresses to area girls unable to afford such an amenity.
While reading Seventeen, Verdell said she learned of a national movement to donate dresses to less fortunate students who deserved to have a memorable experience during a high school event so many students cherish.
She organized her Delta GEMS sisters, acquired almost 30 dresses and gave them to those in need this spring. The uncollected dresses will still find use through a donation to the local United Way.
“I’m really proud of it, because it’s something I actually made happen,” Verdell said. “Most of the time, people have ideas. To actually have taken it from an idea to an action was a great feeling.”
The 17-year-old is no stranger to community outreach. In addition to serving with the Delta GEMS, a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority program that mentors young women and creates compassionate members through service opportunities, her free time is divided between a number of other community-focused tasks and groups: the United Way, Relay for Life, Columbus’ Mayor’s Youth Council, 100 Black Women Proteges, the National Beta Club, among others.
At Stephen Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, Verdell participates in the youth choir, serves as an usher and is its Sunday school’s secretary. She also returns to Franklin Elementary School, where she attended not long ago, to tutor younger students in mathematics.
“I didn’t think I would enjoy it, because math isn’t my favorite subject,” she said. “When I sat down with them and saw how much those fifth graders enjoyed working with an older teenager, it really made me happy to know how much I was helping out.”
Her volunteerism and community outreach came about as she and her worldview matured. Growing up, her parents were able to provide her with all the things she needed in life, she said. “Being young and naive, I just thought everybody had everything they needed,” she said. “As I got older, I realized there are people out there that don’t have what I have, and some who are really in need. I like the feeling of giving back. To know I have a choice and an option to help someone out — I don’t see why anyone else wouldn’t make that same decision to give back.”
After high school, Verdell plans on attending Jackson State University. There, she will major in biology and pre-medicine.
Science and outreach aren’t unfamiliar life paths in the Verdell family. Her mother, Angela, works at Mississippi State University and is president of the Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees. She advocates Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education as focal points for growing future leaders. She also helped found the Professional Leadership Alliance, a non-profit organization that helped to empower underrepresented populations within the Golden Triangle, and has served with numerous community outreach groups, including the Golden Triangle Boys and Girls Club and the Northeast Mississippi Chapter of 100 Black Women.
“You raise your children knowing they’re going to be out there in the world, but you always wonder what impact they’ll make outside of their careers,” Angela Verdell said. “Wherever she goes, I know there will always be a public service component to her life. When you can make a huge impression on your child with your interests and see them take up the same interests speaks volumes, because they do what you do versus what you say.
“My husband, Ron, and I are very proud of Jessica,” she added. “She is a great student, a caring citizen and a role model that other kids can follow. I hope more young people get out there and do the same, because our community is only as strong as the weakest among us. If others step up throughout the community, it’ll make Lowndes County and the entire Golden Triangle a better place.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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