GMC to honor cadet at MLK ceremony

When Georgia Military College commemorates the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this Friday, they will likewise honor a cadet that exemplifies King’s teachings of kindness and respect for one’s neighbors.

Ever since Isaaiah Wilson was a boy, the GMC Prep School student has had a passion for helping others. In his work with local nonprofit, Uniting the Church and Community (UC+C) and the Savannah Court assisted living center, Wilson has helped a multitude of needy families and senior citizens with everything from passing out food and necessities to playing bingo, on top of his existing duties as a GMC cadet. Now a ninth-grader in his second year at GMC, Wilson will receive admission into the school’s Distinguished Order of the Servant Leader, in recognition of his service to the community.

“I volunteer with an organization called Uniting the Churches and the Community, where Elder Cedric Watson is the leader,” said Wilson in an interview with The Union-Recorder Monday. “We go out to communities in Milledgeville and clean neighborhoods and give food, and this past Christmas we gave out gift bags. We’ve gone up to Macon to feed the homeless, too. We started that last year.”

In just a year-and-a-half since he enrolled in GMC, Wilson has recorded roughly 400 hours of community service between UC+C and Savannah Court. As the award is given to students who file service hours in increments of 100, Friday’s MLK Day ceremony will mark Wilson’s second Order of the Student Leader award, entering him into an exclusive club of charitable cadets. He attributes his appetite for volunteer work to his mother, Michelle Wilson, who taught him the importance of giving at an early age.

“If I were riding down the street and saw someone [in need] on the side of the road, I would probably give them my last dollar,” said Wilson. “I don’t know why; I guess I was just born with it … I got a little bit of it from my mother - it’s like she doesn’t say ‘No’.”

Despite 400 hours of giving back to his community in addition to his commitments at GMC, the servant leader also makes time for extracurricular activities: Wilson is also active in GMC’s drama program, where he will play ‘Cowboy Bob’ in “Footloose” this spring. While he considers homelessness to be his biggest concern in the Milledgeville community, he said he hopes to one day enter the mental health field as a therapist. Although 400 hours would be a sizable total for a high-schooler across four years, let alone one-and-a-half, Wilson said he has no plans of slowing down.

“I [will have gotten] about three hundred this year, and three hundred times three is nine hundred, so I’m planning to get about 900 more,” he said. “I’m going to make that a goal.”

GMC’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration is slated for 2:30 p.m. this Friday at the Goldstein Center for Performing Arts on the GMC campus. Albany Technical College President Dr. Anthony O. Parker will serve as guest speaker.

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