Tuesday, January 20, 2009
By AmyJo Brown
Arkansans on Monday took up President-elect Barack Obama’s call for service, adding their share of volunteer sweat and effort to the national observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Celebrations of King’s birthday in the state also included prayer breakfasts, speeches and parades. Although no official observances were held, Arkansans also observed Robert E. Lee’s 202nd birthday Monday.
In North Little Rock, about 46 volunteers - nearly half of them middle-school age - helped repaint the inside of the Jim Weatherington unit of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Arkansas and repair a baseball field.
The volunteers were among the more than 100 people from the William J. Clinton Foundation, the Clinton School of Public Service and local chapters of City Year, a national service organization, who spent time Monday painting community centers and sprucing up central Arkansas parks.
The day of volunteer work was a first for 13-year-old Kendra Givens, who heard about the City Year program while at school.
“I wanted to help others,” she said.
Outside the club, where volunteers worked to level the baseball diamond’s infield, 26-year-old Lindsey Barrett said she volunteered her time Monday because it was important for her to be involved in “hands-on” community service.
A longtime volunteer for various organizations, Barrett said she is studying at the Clinton School of Public Service.
The size of Monday’s turn-out from the City Year program was notable, Barrett said.
“I think people are really energized from hearing Obama speak about the need to serve,” Barrett said.
Across the river, in Little Rock, the new nonprofit Harmony Health Clinic received the help of 56 volunteers throughout Monday afternoon, said K.J.S. Anand, president of the clinic’s board.
The clinic offers free medical and dental care to poor and uninsured patients in Pulaski County between the ages of 13 to 64. It opened its doors in December and is serving patients on Thursdays and Saturdays.
On Monday, volunteers ripped out 30-year-old carpet and floor tiles, painted walls and cleaned up landscaping.
“They did an enormous amount of work,” Anand said.
Dozens of trash bags - evidence of the morning’s work -were piled outside the building, stacked to be hauled away.
Volunteers at Shiloh Christian School in Springdale worked with Feed the Children to distribute food and personal-hygiene items to about 400 needy Northwest Arkansas families on Monday.
Feed the Children, a nonprofit relief organization based in Oklahoma City, sent a truck containing the items to the school early Monday morning.
About 20 football players from the school boxed nonperishable food items in one box and hygiene products in another to distribute at the school.
Travis Bodenstein, a sophomore, said students delivered tickets Friday that could be redeemed Monday for the boxes. Humanitarian workers at First Baptist Church of Springdale identified the families that received tickets.
The two boxes each family received were valued at about $65, said Ben Mayes, president of Shiloh Christian School.
Josh Floyd, head football coach at Shiloh Christian, said the box of food would feed a family of four for up to a week.
Phyllis R. Haynes, executive director of the Arkansas Foodbank Network, said it was evident Obama’s call for service reached many people.
“We had a slew” of volunteers, Haynes said - many who registered ahead of time and others who just appeared Monday ready to lend a hand at the food bank’s distribution center. They totaled about 75.
Jacob Sutter, 12, said he was volunteering to help stack the food bank’s shelves “because president-elect Barack Obama said we need to start taking action and giving back to the community.”
Family friend Wanda Jones, said she wouldn’t have come out if she hadn’t heard Obama’s message.
“You always have intentions. But this has prompted us all,” she said.
On the other side of the room, Rebecca Lincoln, 36, and Lachonda Moore, 28 - both veteran volunteers - said they brought their daughters to the food bank so they could experience volunteer work for the first time.
“I wanted to bring my daughter out here to see that some people don’t get the choice to go to Wal-Mart and get the snack of their choice,” Moore said.
And like others who have been volunteering for some time, Lincoln said she was amazed at the turnout Monday.
“If this is an indication of how people will work together with the new president - wow,” she said.
Information for this article was contributed by Bill Bowden of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.