Community Service on MLK Day

By building upon the concept of 'a day on, not a day off,' we continue the impact and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in this generation and for those to come.

You never know how your act of service will motivate or influence the next person to give. After years of looking forward to MLK Day as a day off of school, I was inspired to get active on MLK because members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. are encouraged to engage in a day of service in our communities to “promote peace and community through love.”

Once babies came into the picture I took a step back from a lot including community service projects and volunteering. Being on our own on the west coast, I could hardly find time to take off and have a date night, let alone take a few hours without kids to volunteer.

Influenced by another mother at my preschool who led projects both in school and larger projects in Los Angeles that were simple enough my preschoolers could get involved with, it inspired me to find something I cared about that I could do as a community service project with my kids. We started our little beach clean up tradition last MLK Day and it’s a great social distant service project you can do with kids at any point in the year because all of our small actions can lead to a tidal wave of change. We spent part of our day dedicated to service for our community cleaning up our beach as we begin a week dedicated to democracy.

I posted a few MLK project ideas for kids from Pinterest in stories Friday on my Instagram page (See them on Pinterest HERE) as well as shared that California African American Museum had a full day of virtual events you could get involved with from home.

What will you do? Inspire others by sharing in your stories. Tag me! I’d love to see!