| Instead of sleeping in and taking the holiday easy, approximately 600 volunteers spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday sprucing up Roosevelt High School in Ward 4. They painted walls and murals, covered up broken windows, built picnic tables and benches and performed other maintenance tasks.
“It’s a great thing to do on Martin Luther King Jr. Day,” said Ward 4 Council member Muriel Bowser, who made opening remarks and stayed to help construct picnic tables and benches. “We’re investing in the ‘dream.’ ... Really, what this is is investing in these kids.”
City Year Washington, DC, an AmeriCorps service program, organized the event, which was sponsored by the Blank Rome law firm. In addition to the basic maintenance, volunteers helped paint a mural in tribute to the late Redskins star safety Sean Taylor.
State Board of Education member Sekou Biddle, who represents wards 3 and 4, credited the organizers for the event’s success. He said perhaps the government could achieve more with outside help.
“Sometimes we look to government to get things done when we shouldn’t,” Biddle said. “Should we really ask government to take on something else when it hasn’t mastered what it has as it is?”
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