About 70 students from this year's Governor's Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values collected cash donations for the Good Samaritan Center at the Governor's Prayer Breakfast in Jefferson City.
Other proceeds from the breakfast help support the forum, which is a three-day study of faith and leadership for college students from across the state.
"We bring the top leaders out of every university and college in the state by personal invitation of the governor," said Jason Jett, a private consultant who works with the committee in charge of the forum. "It is just unique because it does use the principles of Jesus and of servant leadership, which is a lot different from other leadership forms."
During Gov. Jay Nixon's speech at the breakfast, he said the forum has benefited from the breakfast for 28 years and that he was honored to answer some difficult questions from the students of public and private institutions.
"My favorite part is when we got to chance to speak with the governor," said Marco Combs, student from Lincoln University. "I think it is a great experience, you always get to learn different sides of things and different people's life stories and how they transitioned in life to achieve their success."
The students will spend three days speaking to business executives, sports figures and government officials about how faith has affected their lives and careers.
"This is a great thing to be involved with, and you can learn a lot of things from many different people," said Shawn Cortez Johnson Jr., also from Lincoln. "We are broken down into small groups of seven, and we talk about our faith and values, and we get to know one another."
After the breakfast, the students visited the Jefferson City Correctional Center to speak with inmates. Johnson was excited to visit the prison and also to take the leadership skills he is learning back to school, he said.
Missouri was the second state to establish a leadership forum after the National Student Leadership Forum was created in 1990. Clyde Lear of Learfield Communications has organized the state program since its inception.