Making it a day on, not a day off
by Karie Anderson

During his lifetime, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. aspired to build a common ground in which people from all walks of life could join together as equals to focus on important community concerns. Service to him was that common ground. As he once said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.”

Forming that common ground, almost 1,000 UW students, staff, alumni and their families volunteered and joined together to serve in honor of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader, a strong leader, but behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were many other leaders. Be the behind the scenes leaders,” said ASUW President, Alex Narvaez, during the kickoff rally at the By George Café on the Seattle campus.

Also speaking at the rally was Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels who explained to the large group that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of justice. According to Nickels, the kind of justice that he stood for seemed to absent in our society today.

“I am here to say thank you to each of you who are prepared to roll up your sleeves and make out city better,” said Nickels. “I have always been a man of making things happen at the local level.”

Volunteers were making things happen at the local level by participating in a variety of service projects including painting over graffiti, picking up trash, helping local non-profit businesses with daily work, stuffing envelopes, cleaning senior centers and shelters, planting bulbs along the city streets and many other tasks.

Fred Meyer donated more than 100,000 bulbs for many of the groups to plant. In addition, a large group of volunteers were dedicated for the day to moving what is known as “tent city” to a more welcoming location. Tent city is where many of Seattle’s homeless citizens reside.

“It’s wonderful that we are able to do that, but isn’t it horrible that the tent city exists in the first place,” said Johnnella Butler, associate dean and associate vice provost, graduate school professor for American ethnic studies and adjunct professor for English and women studies at the Seattle campus.

Butler quoted a 1967 speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the kickoff rally. She stated that the speech was in response to the United States action in the Vietnam War. According to Butler, the eeriness was how much of what was going on then and what he said could be paralleled to today’s pending war in Iraq.

Speaking of U.S. policy and peace Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated that we as individuals and a community needed to “undergo a moral revolution.”

“I am honored to be a part of and have students that carry on his message,” said Butler. Amidst car horn honking and thanks from pedestrians, The Greater Chamber of Commerce Team One planted bulbs and picked up garbage along the University district streets. Most of the volunteers on this team of 10 were freshman at UW, but a family of four joined in and got their hands dirt also.

“Basically I came because I thought it would be fun and we wanted to give back to our community,” said Team Leader Sarah Kramer.

Kramer and her dorm roommates explained that since none of them owned a vehicle the streets around campus were basically theirs too. Sporting enthusiastic attitudes, all of the volunteers were wearing t-shirts donated by the University bookstore.

Also among the local supporters of the event were the University of Washington Alumni Association, United Way of King County and the SAFECO Corporation.

“We have a long way to go to meet MLK’s dream,” said Nickels at the end of his address to the group of volunteers making Jan. 20 a day on and not a day off.