Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech student Kate Webster, 21, helps set tables at the Rescue Mission. The Rev. John Grace, director of the Newman Community, brought almost 100 student volunteers to the Roanoke Valley.

Virginia Tech students Caroline Gimerez, (from left) Andrew Nadler and Evan Orie prepare salads in the kitchen at the Rescue Mission. About 90 Tech students were in Roanoke on Saturday for a day of service. In addition to volunteering at the Rescue Mission, students helped out Habitat for Humanity, RAM House, and Refugee and Immigration Services.

Jeffery Gorham, the Rescue Mission's head cook, shows Virginia Tech students Joe Lauterio, 20, and Caitlin Laverdiere, 21, how to slice desserts. The students participated in a day of service Saturday organized by the Newman Community, Tech's Catholic campus ministry.

Looking over Will Secor's shoulder, a casual observer might not have recognized his chore as missionary work.

Standing over a sheet of lightly breaded pork chops just removed from a nearby restaurant-sized oven, Secor brushed each chop with melted butter.

When he finished, the oven mitts went on, the tray went back into the oven and another came out for the topping.

But Secor wasn't pulling just another restaurant shift, he was volunteering at the Rescue Mission of Roanoke -- one of almost 100 Virginia Tech students who spent most of Saturday donating their services at various nonprofits in the Roanoke Valley.

Fall Service Day was sponsored by the Newman Community, Tech's Catholic campus ministry.

"It's really important that faith isn't just something we talk about," the Salem native said as he brushed the chops. "You have to live it out."

It's an attitude that has led the junior to take other mission trips with the Newman Community and even influenced his decision to major in agriculture and applied economics, fields that he hopes he can use to provide practical help to developing countries.

Several of his schoolmates joined him at the Rescue Mission, working in the kitchen and across the street in the Thrift Store, while others split off to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project, work at Refugee and Immigration Services or pitch in at RAM House.

All but the Habitat volunteers, who went straight to their work site, met at the Rescue Mission about 9 a.m. where the Rev. John Grace sent them off.

"Service is about relationships," both with the people they would be seeing that day and with each other, the Newman Community director said.

The students would not be making dramatic changes to the larger society with their efforts, but they would never pass Roanoke again without thinking about the people and the needs they witnessed, he said.

"And it's important in our tradition that we not do service solo, but join in community," just as they worship.

The Newman Community sponsors what it calls "alternative spring break" each year with service trips to poor neighborhoods in places such as Haiti, Mexico, rural Mississippi and Flint, Mich.

And while it has ongoing projects in the New River Valley, last summer Grace decided it would be good to tackle a daylong project closer to home. He contacted Roanoke Mayor David Bowers, who connected him with John Pendarvis, president of Family Service of Roanoke Valley.

Pendarvis helped arrange contacts with the agencies the students helped Saturday.

The group that remained at the Rescue Mission kitchen went straight to work, some setting tables, others cutting up vegetables for salads, more working on other dishes.

Without such volunteers, the Rescue Mission could never fulfill its mission of serving the Valley's poor and homeless, said Volunteer Coordinator Leslie Littlefield.

Last year alone, the mission recorded almost 70,000 hours of service by volunteers, she said.

In fact, by the time the Tech students arrived, Cave Spring High School senior Murray Joiner had already been at the mission for five hours. He arrived at 4 a.m. to help prepare breakfast, which, like each meal of the day, is served in three shifts.

Joiner said he does a lot of volunteer work, crediting his mother and father with urging him to give something back to the community. He expects it's something he will continue after he heads off to college next year, with a goal of eventually becoming a neurosurgeon.

Many of the Tech students are serial volunteers as well.

Sophomore Rebecca McCunniff of Winston-Salem, N.C., participated in similar projects with the youth groups at church and her Catholic high school, she said as she helped set out silverware.

Freshman Caroline Gimenez said she's "always volunteered in church. It's something I just love to do."

Her family has moved a lot, she said, and although her parents now live in Williamsburg, she graduated from high school in Lancaster, Pa. After deciding to attend Virginia Tech, she attended a retreat for new students sponsored by the Newman Community.

"When you first come to college, you don't know what to expect. You hear about party schools, but I heard that Tech was different. That was why I wanted to come here," she said.

Grace, who was a campus minister at James Madison University for 16 years, had spent two years in Chicago when he was assigned to the Virginia Tech ministry in July 2007.

It was only three months after the deadly shootings of 32 students and faculty brought international attention to the campus.

That incident changed the campus, Grace said, and its effect has lasted with students who were already in school then.

However, the service projects help demonstrate the positive impact of faith and community, he said, and the determination of the students "to follow the example of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples."

"We are no longer victims, but witnesses."