Student Profile: People Should Aspire to Give Back

Cornelius Collins packing food boxes for needy residents at Gleaners Food Bank in Detroit and ended the day helping someone move from one home to the next.

Though one is considered volunteerism and the other a favor, Collins knows that both are in the spirit of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

“Helping people out is something that is really important for MLK Day because it’s what he did and what we should aspire to,” said Collins, a 22-year-old interior design student at Dearborn's .

“It’s important to help others who may not be able to afford food or other necessities,” he said.

Collins, 22, of Inkster is a graduate of Ypsilanti High School. He said that he learned about Martin Luther King at school but more often from his parents, Clent and Angela Simmons.

“They would always tell me how things were back then,” he said. “They would always make sure that I knew that people fought for the things we have today.”

But it’s hard for someone who is born more than 20 years after King’s death to truly understand the way things used to be in the 1960s, Collins said.

“It hit me all at once after I started going to college,” he said. “I began to think, ‘I’m a college student today because of everything people in the past sacrificed to make sure I could be here.’

"People had to fight for me to be here.”

Ever since that time, Collins made sure to make volunteering a part of his own personal King Day activities. But he said that he believes King would have wanted people to realize they don’t have to wait until a holiday to give back.

“What I want people to know is that giving back isn’t a one-day-a-year prospect,” Collins said. “People need things 365 days a year. You can give back any time and it will always be appreciated.”

The food that Collins and an army of volunteers packed at Gleaners will be distributed to many organizations that help meet the needs of the poor and hungry in southeast Michigan.

Collins hopes to attend the University of Michigan after he completes his studies at Henry Ford this year. However he is still looking at colleges. Collins also hopes to study architecture so he can create design concepts for individuals and businesses from the ground up. Collins hopes to one day have his own firm. In the meantime, he attends classes and works as a salesman at the Macy’s store at Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi.

One thing he would like people to realize about volunteerism that honors Martin Luther King Jr. is that it’s a rewarding experience.

“I’m so proud to be able to do it and I’m having a lot of fun,” he said. “You get to meet people and speak to people that you wouldn’t otherwise and you learn their stories. It feels really good to help people out.”