Instead taking the day to go ice skating or get out of town or watch TV, more than 600 volunteers filled the halls of Robert Nathaniel Dett Elementary School on Monday, building cubbies and shelves and painting walls for City Year Chicago’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.
Like many others across the city, these volunteers chose to take a day on, instead of a day off, to honor King’s legacy.
Amber Floyd, an AmeriCorps member with the nonprofit College Possible, said the day of service embodies King’s belief that anyone can serve their community.
“We’re all able to come together as a community, not really knowing each other, not really knowing the roles we do day to day, but we’re just individuals that want to serve in this moment so it’s pretty awesome,” said Floyd.
City Year Chicago has hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service every year since its founding in 1994. This year the event was attended by City Year corps members and alumni, as well as employees of the event’s corporate sponsors and community groups. The King holiday is the only national holiday that also is a national day of service.
A number of state and city officials came out to kick off the day of service at Dett.
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, spent the morning putting fresh paint on one of the school’s old classroom doors. While he was happy that the students of Dett could enjoy a day off from class, he wished some of them were there to see the hard work being put into their school.
“It just shows our kids that someone cares about them,” said Burnett. “This school is 90% low income, 90% public housing. When kids feel love, it inspires them to do more.”
After City Year’s opening ceremony, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and first lady Amy Eshleman went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository to join young volunteers there, packing potatoes and bags of macaroni.
Kids enthusiastically greeted Lightfoot by offering fist bumps and shouting “Hi, Mayor!”
Lightfoot worked alongside her wife and volunteers from the city’s youth commission, Metropolitan Family Services, Gary Comer College Prep Middle School, My Block My Hood My City and the Gads Hill Center.
As one child filled her sack of pasta, Lightfoot said, “You’re a little short. Tiny bit more,” as the volunteer scooped. As she twisted a bag of potatoes shut, Lightfoot remarked that she worked during college at a factory that made paper cans for Tony Chachere’s original creole seasoning.
Before leaving, Lightfoot said, “Good work everyone!” as the volunteers applauded. She then went upstairs to address the kids as they had lunch, telling them to look for ways to serve.
“We need to also make sure that we continue to focus on one of the most important lessons from Dr. King — that we have to reach out to those in need — that’s what the Greater Chicago Food Depository does every single day, reaching out to people in our city with some of the most basic things that we have to provide,” said Lightfoot.
For members of My Block My Hood My City, volunteering is already a large part of their lives. But Dominetrius Chambers, a sophomore at Malcolm X College, and Amari Bell Collins, a senior at Chicago Academy High School, still appreciate the opportunity to give back on King Day.
“We do a lot of volunteer work, such as this, we were involved with turning vacant lots into gardens,” Bell Collins said. “But this was a good volunteer event. I learned a lot from just packing potatoes.”
![Claudia Perez’s children could count on one hand the number of times they had seen their father cry. The day their mother left was one of them. Perez had worked her whole life for a dream that did not come true: Save enough money to take her family back to Mexico and live together in the town where they were all born. Instead, on a cold February day, she stepped onto a bus in Brighton Park and said goodbye, making the difficult choice between her loved ones in Mexico and her family in Chicago. “Don’t leave my love. No te […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ctc-VHR5442_183545767.jpg?w=525 "Claudia Perez’s children could count on one hand the number of times they had seen their father cry. The day their mother left was one of them. Perez had worked her whole life for a dream that did not come true: Save enough money to take her family back to Mexico and live together in the town where they were all born. Instead, on a cold February day, she stepped onto a bus in Brighton Park and said goodbye, making the difficult choice between her loved ones in Mexico and her family in Chicago. “Don’t leave my love. No te […]")
