Honoring MLK's Legacy as a Day On, Not a Day Off
Today, I had the pleasure of joining the City Year Washington, DC corps at Ron Brown Middle School and Houston Elementary Schools in Northeast DC who welcomed nearly 600 community volunteers on the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Day of Service. As it always is when myImpact.org partners with CYDC, it as an inspiring experience that affirmed my belief, yet again, in the important work of the national service community.
It was a big day for the service world. The President and his family traveled to SOME (So Others Might Eat) soup kitchen to feed the homeless in the mid-morning. At our site, Education Secretary Duncan and CNCS Acting CEO Nikki Goren came to serve. Robert Egger's DC Central Kitchen had the VA Secretary. Volunteers around the country joined non-profit and service organizations; many stories were captured on a daylong live webcast produced by the Hands On Network.
Through it all, reminders of last week's devastating Haitian earthquake were present. With pictures of such utter devastation just a few hundred miles from the US mainland, today's day of service took on a more urgent significance. It was, as Steve Culbertson reminded in a Huffington Post essay today, a reminder of the meaning behind the MLK Day of Service and the legacy of Dr. King.
Hopefully, I will have time in the next few days to post pictures & videos - and perhaps a longer-form video - of today's CYDC service in Northeast. In the meantime, here are some of the articles on service, out of literally hundreds that were published today, that captured my attention:
"Youth Poised for Action" by Steve Culbertson, President, YSA (referenced above)
"Capital Culture: Obama cites value of volunteerism" - AP
"King service co-founder: Holiday "has a long way to go" - citing Fmr. Penn. Sen. Harris Wofford, who pushed for the creation of the King Holiday, saying that last year was the first time that MLK Day took, what he called, a "quantum leap forward" - Washington Post
"A New York Volunteer Effort Will Soon Spread to 10 Cities" - NY Times- about the Cities of Service Initiative, a project of the ServiceNation Coalition and Be The Change, Inc.
Finally, this press release from The White House listing the locations that various Administration officials served in the Greater DC Region today.
For more coverage of MLK Day 2010, visit www.myImpact.org, and look for our tweets from today, @myImpact
It was a big day for the service world. The President and his family traveled to SOME (So Others Might Eat) soup kitchen to feed the homeless in the mid-morning. At our site, Education Secretary Duncan and CNCS Acting CEO Nikki Goren came to serve. Robert Egger's DC Central Kitchen had the VA Secretary. Volunteers around the country joined non-profit and service organizations; many stories were captured on a daylong live webcast produced by the Hands On Network.
Through it all, reminders of last week's devastating Haitian earthquake were present. With pictures of such utter devastation just a few hundred miles from the US mainland, today's day of service took on a more urgent significance. It was, as Steve Culbertson reminded in a Huffington Post essay today, a reminder of the meaning behind the MLK Day of Service and the legacy of Dr. King.
Hopefully, I will have time in the next few days to post pictures & videos - and perhaps a longer-form video - of today's CYDC service in Northeast. In the meantime, here are some of the articles on service, out of literally hundreds that were published today, that captured my attention:
"Youth Poised for Action" by Steve Culbertson, President, YSA (referenced above)
"Capital Culture: Obama cites value of volunteerism" - AP
"King service co-founder: Holiday "has a long way to go" - citing Fmr. Penn. Sen. Harris Wofford, who pushed for the creation of the King Holiday, saying that last year was the first time that MLK Day took, what he called, a "quantum leap forward" - Washington Post
"A New York Volunteer Effort Will Soon Spread to 10 Cities" - NY Times- about the Cities of Service Initiative, a project of the ServiceNation Coalition and Be The Change, Inc.
Finally, this press release from The White House listing the locations that various Administration officials served in the Greater DC Region today.
For more coverage of MLK Day 2010, visit www.myImpact.org, and look for our tweets from today, @myImpact
Labels: City Year, Civic Engagement, MLK Day, myImpact.org, National Service, Obama Administration, President Obama
posted by Chris Golden @ 11:51 PM
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