Student Bar Association at MC Law Boosts Habitat Projects

Mississippi College Law School and the Butler Snow law firm teamed up for this Habitat project in Jackson during last year's Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration.

Over the past five years, Mississippi College Law School Student Bar Association donations to Habitat projects in metro Jackson climbed to $20,000.

MC Law students also devote long hours to volunteer at Habitat construction projects in the capital city.

When America celebrates the birthday of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, MC Law students will again partner with the Butler Snow law firm in Jackson to help with a Habitat build.

The MC Law and Butler Snow partnership “embrace the ideal that a day of service embodies the essence of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream by helping a brother and sister in need,” says Cindy Griffin, executive director of the Habitat for Humanity Mississippi Capital Area.

“The greatest satisfaction from volunteering with Habitat for Humanity is that you are transforming lives and changing neighborhoods – building homes and building hope,” Griffin says.

Since its founding in 1986, the Jackson area Habitat chapter has partnered with more than 590 families to build homes in the capital city area. The nonprofit Christian housing group teams with low-income families and uses volunteer labor and donated materials when possible. The affordable houses are then sold to families at cost with no profit or interest.

The MLK Habitat project is the type of community building he wants the law school in Jackson to support, says Tim Henderson, president of the MC Law Student Bar Association.

Mississippi College law students aren’t the only ones who will wear old clothes and put on gloves as they labor for Habitat. Thorne Butler, the MC Law director of development, is a longtime Habitat supporter who regularly volunteers to build affordable homes in the Jackson metro area. He participated in the MC Law-Butler Snow Habitat project last year on MLK Day.

Elsewhere, hundreds of Mississippi College students are expected to assist with several community  projects in metro Jackson linked to MLK’s birthday celebration. MC’s Student Government Association on the Clinton campus is taking the lead to organize it. It’s part of the annual Big Event campaign launched by Texas A&M University and spreading to scores of colleges across the USA.