BIDDEFORD — On Monday, while many students were enjoying their day off from school, others were offering their service in honor of the day commemorating the life and works of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Thornton Academy students, who are members of the Interact Club, donated a couple hours of their time to help a neighborhood center in Biddeford. Eight members of the club, which is Rotary International’s service club for young people, were helping to pack boxes at the Seeds of Hope Neighborhood Center on South Street.

“Anything the community needs, we sign up for,” said student Corinne Kirby, a junior.

Volunteer work the Interact members perform can range from baby-sitting for parent-teacher organization meetings to working at local soup kitchens, according to the students.

She and her fellow students perform community service, said Kirby, because, “We all feel fortunate with what we have. Not everyone is as privileged and taken care of as us.”

Students were helping Seeds of Hope because the center, which was formerly the Christ Episcopal Church, is getting ready to host another nonprofit organization that will help youth, though the name of that organization has not been made public.

In order to make space for the new group, items on the second floor, where church services were once held, need to be packed up and sent to the Episcopalian diocese, said Chaplain Shirley Bowen, who is also the executive director of Seeds of Hope.

The center will hang on to a few of the church items for weekly religious services that will be held on the first floor, she said.

It was fitting that the students were helping to make the space ready for the new youth program, said Bowen, because “it’s youth helping youth.”

Although the church is no longer, as the last service was Dec. 24, the Seeds of Hope ministry is a form of church, she said, and is sanctioned by the diocese. The drop-in center provides food, shelter and companionship for those who need it Tuesday through Friday, and it also hosts the Career Resource Center, the In A Pinch non-food pantry, and other activities and services.

“We’re expanding our understanding of what it means to be a church,” said Bowen. “We’re meeting people where they are. We’re serving them and letting them know they are children of God. A lot of people don’t know that.”

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.