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Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up, and there are plenty of things to do on this holiday. Saline’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee is encouraging people to turn the holiday into a “day of service.”
“We really wanted to highlight organizations throughout Saline that individuals can think about contributing to, giving support to, or even on their own, offering service in some kind of way and highlighting the through social media,” Saline Area Schools Board of Education Trustee Kandace Jones, who is a member of the city’s DEI Committee, said. “We created a hashtag, #SalineGives, and we are going to be asking community members to share ways in which they are giving.”
“You don’t need to attach dollar amounts to it,” Jones added. “You can donate food, help to shovel snow, clean a yard. Any kind of service [can be shared] on social media using that hashtag.”
Saline Area School’s Heritage Equity Team has provided a list
of activities to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy. This includes a list of podcasts through Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, to understand the history of the Civil Rights era in proper context. You can also find volunteer ideas from Americorps, a federal agency that focuses on education, disaster response, healthcare, environmental, economic, military and veterans assistance issues.
“I am going to be giving blood and I’m also looking at taking supplies over to Saline Social Services,” City Councilor Kevin Camero-Sulak said.
The University of Michigan is going to be hosting its 2022 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium online at 10 a.m. According to the U of M’s Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, the lecture will consist of a wide range of voices.
Also in Ann Arbor, you can sign up to volunteer at the Barton Nature Area, for its MLK Day Of Service program. This will take place from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on January 17. According to the City of Ann Arbor’s website, “Local participants will be helping [Natural Area Preservation] to improve the wetlands at Barton Nature Area, creating habitat for turtles. The wetlands along the horseshoe-shaped curve in the river in this park benefit both humans and wildlife.”
Image Credit: City of Saline Twitter.
