Saturday mornings on Southeast Missouri State University's campus are usually pretty quiet and peaceful. It seems weekends have unofficially been declared a time to be lazy and to catch up on sleep that students lack during the week.

However, at 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 23, 107 Southeast students met in the MMTF parking lot with excitement in their eyes instead of tiredness. These students were ready to make a more than four-hour commute to help those in need -- anything but lazy on their Saturday and Sunday off.

Washington, Ill., was in desperate need of volunteers after being hit by a tornado on Nov. 17 that left the town in ruins. A National Weather Service survey confirmed the next day that the storm had produced EF-4 damage, according to The Associated Press.

After seeing the devastation of the town in the news, senior Nick Maddock couldn't sit back and wait for someone else to help. He quickly reached out to his fraternity brothers in Lambda Chi Alpha for volunteers that would join him in going to Washington.

Maddock soon realized that it wouldn't be hard to find students across the entire campus that were willing to volunteer in Washington. On Nov. 18, Maddock expanded his tornado relief initiative campus-wide through social media.

Forty-eight hours later, 100 volunteers were signed up, and more than $3,000 was donated. By the third day, more than $4,000 was donated. The initiative ended with a total of 41 donors.

"I mean, you almost look to the bystander effect," Maddock said. "You can always sit here and say, 'Well somebody else is going to help, somebody else is going to help,' but if you really want to make a difference and you really want to make an impact then you need to be the one who stands up and makes that difference and gets done what needs to be done."

The student volunteers did just that. Upon arriving in Washington, students were assigned different tasks to help the city where it needed it most.

Senior Amanda Hargrove and sophomore Lina Mahr, members of Gamma Sigma Sigma, said they were sent to the Expo Center where they transferred bags of clothing from trailers and loaded and unloaded food and necessities that would be distributed to families in need.

Other jobs included search and find for family valuables, debris clean up and working with the animal shelter to find lost pets.

"It was a great eye-opener to see how people come together when in need," Hargrove said.

After volunteering Saturday, a local church provided the Southeast student volunteers with dinner. During the meal, Hargrove had one of her most memorable moments from the trip.

"A 3-year-old boy came up to us at the Methodist church where we had dinner and said thank you and gave me a hug," Hargrove said.

Other volunteers experienced similar moments that made the trip to Washington life-changing.

Nelli Schmidt, a junior and member of Alpha Chi Omega, spent the first day of volunteering helping an elderly man who was there with his church separating the debris so some of the materials could be recycled.

Schmidt said she spent several hours helping the man sort through the debris and had a fun time talking to him.

"He just was asking me questions about school, and he was so thankful I was there helping," Schmidt said. "He thought it was amazing that I was from Cape Girardeau and I drove five hours to help."

But what was to come next from this man would be something Schmidt wouldn't expect.

"It was so shocking to me," Schmidt said. "I told him I had to leave, and he gave me a hug, and then he slipped $120 into my hand and he just told me to go eat a really good dinner. I was just speechless. I gave him another hug, and I was just like 'thank you so much.'"

Shortly after, Schmidt realized what she really wanted to do with the money.

"He gave it to me, and then I walked back to my car, and I was like I cannot take $120, and then I was thinking about it and I talked to Nick [Maddock] and asked if he could please donate this to the community," Schmidt said.

Sunday evening Southeast volunteers headed back to Cape Girardeau, many walked away more focused on what they had learned from the experience rather than how cold their fingers and toes were.

"Simply be grateful for what you have," Maddock said. "No matter how hard you think your life is, no matter how rough of a patch you think you're going through, there's always somebody out there who's going to have it harder. I think this weekend was a sobering reminder of that. When you look at all of those individuals who have really lost everything they own -- their homes, their animals, some family members -- so I think that we just need to be grateful and humbled by this experience."