Freshmen at Tusculum College will be busy on Thursday, Sept. 11, working on various community projects in and around the Greeneville-Greene County area as the college observes its traditional Nettie Fowler McCormick Service Day, usually referred to informally as Nettie Day.
The service day, the name of which references the late Nettie F. McCormick, a major Tusculum benefactor from about a century ago, is a day in which students are called upon to provide practical help to good causes throughout the community. The service emphasis is a memorial to the altruism of McCormick, whose husband, Cyrus McCormick, was famed as the inventor of the mechanical reaper.
The McCormicks gave much of their vast fortune to causes they believed in, particularly causes associated, as is Tusculum College, with Presbyterianism.
This Thursday morning, participating students will scatter across the area, under faculty supervision, to work on such projects as playground and grounds improvements at Greeneville’s Boys and Girls Club, mulching and planting at the Greene Valley Developmental Center, painting at the Roby Fitzgerald Adult Center in Greeneville, and cleaning in the historic Wesley Cemetery, a predominately African-American cemetery.
Other projects are also scheduled or may be scheduled prior to Thursday.
Nettie Day is an old tradition at Tusculum College, having evolved from what began as a campus cleanup day honoring Nettie McCormick.