For many students, staff and faculty at the University, yesterday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day meant having “a day on, not a day off.”
The Office of Service-Learning and the student organization Civic Action Now coordinated what they called the MLK Challenge Day. This is the University’s fourth annual day of service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, said Mari Knuth-Bouracee, who works at the Office of Service-Learning and was one of the coordinating staff members for the event.
“As an office and I think as a University, we believe in the vision that Dr. King had and the legacy that he left for us,” Knuth-Bouracee said. “So we serve today to honor Dr. King, and we hope that this is only a jumping off point, a starting point, for the service to come for the people involved today.”
Volunteers registered for the event through OrgSync and then were placed with an event based on their skills.
“So each volunteer identified what skill they could contribute … and so we matched that based on the need for the project,” Knuth-Bouracee said.
Once the volunteers arrived in the Union Ballroom Monday morning, they checked in, received their group numbers and signed a liability waiver, Knuth-Bouracee said. Next, the volunteers went into the Ballroom for breakfast and to meet the other members of their group.
“We had an opening ceremony at 10 a.m. where we got to learn a little bit about MLK Day, why we celebrate, why it’s a day on, not a day off,” she said. “We heard from the mayor and President Cartwright, and then the groups had time to either plan their projects or travel to their sites, and from there they had about five to five and a half hours to work on their service project.”
The volunteers were involved in projects at service sites in Wood and Lucas counties. The Office of Service Learning did a broad outreach to all the local community partners and local non-profits and gave them information about the day, Knuth-Bouracee said. Volunteers went to 31 different locations, including The Victory Center, All About the Kids Learning Center, Heritage Corner Health Care Campus, the Jordan Family Development Center and the Northwest Community Corrections Center.
“In the OSL, we really believe in meeting our community’s needs,” she said, “So all of our projects, all of our community partners, were self-identified. So they had a need that needed to be filled and they reached out to us to make that a project for the day.”
Sophomore Kaneesha Douglas was placed at The Victory Center, an education and support center for cancer patients in Toledo and came out for the challenge for the second time. She said she thinks she will even do it again next year.
“To me, it’s about giving back to the community, but also helping others who are less fortunate,” Douglas said.
There were two groups of volunteers at All About the Kids Learning Center on Ordway Avenue. One group touched up the paint in a playroom, the other group shoveled snow from the playground and repaired bikes.
Dr. Dafina Lazarus Stewart, an associate professor in the higher education and student affairs department at the University, was apart of the group that shoveled snow and repaired bikes.
Stewart said she volunteered Monday because she thinks “service is important and it’s necessary to actually fulfill part of Dr. King’s legacy … Doing community uplift through acts of service is one way to get his goal accomplished.”
Another group of volunteers took a shuttle to Heritage Corner Health Care Campus located on Klotz Road and helped put together information to mail out. The volunteers worked on their own at first, but after lunch, the residents of Heritage Corner joined them, said New Programs Director Debbie Hatfield.
“This is like a huge help to us,” Hatfield said. “This part isn’t very challenging, but when the clients get in here, that will be the challenge.”
Volunteers could also be found at the Jordan Family Development Center, a Head-Start Pre-school on North College Drive, where they got creative with decorations for the walls.
Sophomore volunteer Travis Lohse explained how the parents of the children who attend the Head-Start Pre-school wrote out goals for their children at the beginning of the year. On Monday, Lohse and his Delta Sigma Pi fraternity brothers, who also participated in the MLK Day, put the goals onto cloth frames and decorated them for the children to see. The frames will be hung up in the center all year long for the children.
Sue Krassow, the office assistant at the Jordan Family Development Center, said this was the second year the center had hosted the volunteers on MLK Day and they “enjoy having them.”
Two groups of volunteers were also shuttled to the Northwest Community Corrections Center on East Gypsy Lane Road to help out.
Freshman Jasmine Jennings was a part of the group that interacted with the residents of the center.
“We’re talking to the residents about Martin Luther King Day and what it means to have a dream,” Jennings said. “We’re incorporating everybody’s thoughts, so … I explained some things he spoke about. But also, I sort of changed it up a little bit, asking them what does it mean for them to have a dream.”
In addition to talking to the residents about the day, the volunteers also judged an essay contest the residents participated in. Each volunteer was assigned a group of residents and they sat with them and read their essays, Jennings said.
“I am enjoying myself. Well, my group, they’re quite funny; they are very funny,” Jennings said. “And, you know, I’m learning some things about them, well, just about people in general, but about them. They made it real down to earth. I could be myself. I didn’t have to be, you know, the college student, I could just be Jasmine.”
After the volunteers were done at the sites, they came back to campus for closing ceremony, reflection and dinner, Knuth-Bouracee said.
The closing ceremony was held in the Union Ballroom and involved a performance of service-related skits by the Humanities Troup.
The event would not have been possible without its many sponsors.
“We don’t have an operating budget for this event, so everything is fundraised and everything is donated. And it’s about a $9,000 event,” Knuth-Bouracee said.
To get sponsors, the Office of Service-Learning reached out to the community using e-mail, hard copy mailings and cold calls. Sponsors of the event donated money, food, supplies and their time.
Knuth-Bouracee said she heard a lot of good feedback, and volunteers told her they had a great time at their site.
“I think anytime you see this many people come together to change the community they live in, it’s a success,” she said.
MLK DAY BY THE NUMBERS
49 sponsors31 locations39 projects Approximately 450 volunteers 3,150 service hours logged
