MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

Coffee County Middle School students were rewarded $3,000 worth of books for their 3,000 hours of service to the community.

The books were given by the Martin Luther King III Foundation as part of an effort to record 100 million hours of service before what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 100th birthday in January of 2029 through their Realize the Dream initiative.

“Out of all the schools in the United States, elementary, middle, and high school, we were chosen because we did so many community service projects last year,” says Special Eduction teacher Betty Shelton. “It just feels kind of special.”

Shelton says that the students are involved in many community service projects including sending cards to military who can’t make it home for Christmas, making goodie bags for police, fire, and EMTs, and sending cards to nursing home residents this coming Valentine’s Day, among others.

She hopes that the books give the students the recognition they don’t often receive for their service.

“The middle schoolers don’t often get recognized because people don’t see all of the great things they do because they’re not as excited; they don’t scream ‘I did this! I did this,’” explained Shelton. “They just do it, so this kind of gives them a little bit of praise for the things that they do.”

“Fortunately, Dr. Anderson lets us do a lot of community service projects because he believes in the kids giving back to the community,” she added.

Anderson, the principal at CCMS, says he hopes the students’ community service efforts “instills just some good morals in them.”

“For them to be a good human being and to learn to give to others, those are what we call soft skills, so to speak, that people in society need to have, and so it’s great to foster that as much as you can at any age possible,” he explained. “I think it is very, very good that students are giving like this.”

“I think they enjoy being able to give back to the community,” he added.

In addition to getting recognized, the students were able to hand deliver some bags that they had prepared to First Christian Church Tullahoma Senior Pastor Tom Murdock.

The bags contained hygiene items as well as mylar blankets and are going to be distributed at the Tullahoma winter shelter that opens Dec. 29 and remains open until the end of February. The shelter offers a warm and safe place to stay for the homeless population.

Murdock says that the effort put forth by the middle schoolers is “very overwhelming.”

“They understand what’s going on and this compassion they have and a real sense from them that they realize this is something they can do, and it’s a small thing, but it’s something that’s important and it’s going to help somebody. It just makes me feel like, I don’t even know how you’d describe that,” says Murdock. “It’s just a great feeling knowing that we have some kids that really are growing and maturing in ways that they might not have.”