By Jackson Connor

In previous years, the Spiritual Life Center has hosted various worship services to celebrate Thanksgiving. This year, faculty members explored a new and more charitable direction.

Director of Spiritual Life Shelli Jankowski-Smith, along with Chaplain Joyce DeGreeff, were instrumental in creating an event in which Northeastern students could reach out to their community while also helping those in need.

“We felt that we weren’t meeting the need that the Northeastern community was expressing,” Jankowski-Smith said.

For more than a decade, Jankowski-Smith and DeGreeff have organized monthly trips to the Moreville House on Westland Avenue, a low-income housing development designed for senior citizens dealing with disabilities and financial instability.

“The students involved with the program have described the elderly residents of the Moreville House as their surrogate grandparents,” said DeGreeff.

Last Thursday night, Nov. 20, roughly 40 Northeastern students and faculty members gathered from 4 to 8 p.m. to prepare appetizers, a pasta dinner, and an array of deserts for nearly 100 Moreville House residents. Students were encouraged to supply musical entertainment for the evening in addition to food.

Jankowski-Smith said last November was the first time the organization put together a true charity project like the event that took place at the Moreville House.

The group’s efforts were redirected to sending care packages to those involved in the wildfires that ravaged California. This was a small step in the new path the organization is now immersed in.

“The new motto became give thanks; give a hand,” Janksowski-Smith said.

The Spiritual Life Center’s main objective is to serve, support, nurture and celebrate the spiritual and religious well-being of the Northeastern community, according to the center’s website. Janksowski-Smith said while the Spiritual Life Center is comprised of many faiths and religions this event is with out any overt religious constituent.

“There is no outward religious component to this event at all, however we are doing this out of a spiritual place,” Jankowski-Smith said.

DeGreeff was also equally passionate about the purity behind such a charity. The objective was to heal and do good in the world rather than impose religious beliefs on others, she said.

“Only in its motivation is this event influenced by religion,” DeGreeff said.

Students were encouraged to donate money toward the cost of the meal as well as participate in the preparation and clean up such a feast entails.

With the Moreville House so close to campus, leaders like Jankowski-Smith and DeGreeff said they felt it necessary to reach out to Northeastern’s neighbors. The religious idea of love thy neighbor is intended to be embodied and put in to effect in this scenario.

“All religions help those who are less fortunate,” DeGreeff said. “We should share our blessings with other people.”