Several hundred members of the George Washington University community didn’t spend their Monday federal holiday watching TV, sleeping late or avoiding homework. Instead, they worked to better their communities and to honor a civil rights icon with the school’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service and Leadership, the opening event of a weeklong, university-wide celebration of Dr. King’s life and legacy.
“Today’s great turnout demonstrates the continuing power of Dr. King’s leadership and reflects the very best of GW,” said George Washington President Steven Knapp.
Wearing T-shirts bearing Dr. King’s words—“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve”—nearly 700 volunteers sat cross-legged on the floor of the Marvin Center’s Grand Ballroom for the day’s opening remarks. GW community members joined volunteers from Points of Light, Capital Partners for Education and other partner organizations.
“This is a day when we serve, but…it’s also a day we reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go to make the dream a reality,” said Amy Cohen, executive director of the university’s Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service. “We’re here today to recommit ourselves to peaceful, effective and concerted action” to combat lasting injustices, she said.
Speakers Charlene Drew Jarvis, a former D.C. Council chair and former president of Southeastern University, and U.S. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) drew parallels between Dr. King’s context five decades earlier and the context in which young American activists are working today.
“King’s issues are still scrawled across the front pages today,” Del. Norton said. “I ask you not to live in the past—not to become hero-worshippers of the great heroes of the past…[but to] seize this moment.”
After a rousing exhortation to service by Michael Tapscott, director of the Multicultural Student Services Center, volunteers spread out to projects around campus and across the Washington, D.C., area.
Maija Hallsmith, a senior in the Elliott School of International Affairs, has participated in the MLK Jr. Day of Service since her freshman year. This year she volunteered as a leader, helping students create colorful no-sew blankets for children in need with Project Linus.
“I think it’s important because, as a lot of people say, ‘It’s not a day off, it’s a day on,’” she said. “You don’t have class, you’re not obligated to do anything, but you can choose to do something to help the people around you. And I think people want to do that.”
Other on-campus service projects included Operation Gratitude, where volunteers made paracord survival bracelets for active military members, and Cards for Hospitalized Kids. About 200 volunteers crowded back into the Grand Ballroom to help assemble literacy materials like books and flashcards for Jumpstart, which helps prepare preschool-aged children in underserved communities for kindergarten.
“We at Points of Light believe that service unites—that service is an opportunity for the everyday citizen to make changes that the government isn’t capable of making,” said Teri Johnson, senior vice president for strategic partnerships and program expansion at Points of Light, who participated in the Jumpstart project. “And GW–which is such a vibrant campus, right in the heart of the city—is a natural fit to help bring service projects to life.”
Running alongside the service projects were community-led workshops on leadership issues like “Exploring Identity and Privilege,” “Art and Activism” and “Organizing for Peace.”
Off campus, some volunteers sorted furniture for donation at A Wider Circle; others participated in beautification projects at Hyattsville Middle School and Mazique Childcare Centers. Still more worked with the D.C. Office on Aging. And special guests joined the GW-student-led team at a Jumpstart event coordinated by the Corporation for National and Community Service at a Boys and Girls Club in Northwest: President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughter Malia, who helped create literacy kits with books for donation to Jumpstart and for the Boys and Girls Club students.
At Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Northwest, several dozen volunteers helped run an “MLK Party” with Little Friends for Peace (LFFP). Inside, children and community members ate, laughed, danced and worked on collaborative art projects. Outside, under a wintery blue sky, GW students played touch football with an eager crowd of enthusiastic kids.
Volunteer Kristen Pinto, a junior in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, has been working with LFFP as a volunteer coordinator for two years. Next to her, children worked on a giant paper chain of names and drawings—“To remind us that we’re all connected,” she explained.
“[The Day of Service] is all about community-building, relationship-building and getting to know people you hadn’t known before,” she said.
