200 volunteers gather for MLK Day of Service

Around 200 members of the University of La Verne community read to children, worked in community gardens and helped assemble tote bags for the homeless Jan. 18 for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and their relatives spent the day working on 13 different community projects to honor the legacy of Dr. King.

“The theme this year was social justice and sustainable communities and it was embedded in all of the community service projects,” said Rosalilia Gradilla, coordinator of the Co-Curricular Community Engagement Program.

While the previous year’s projects approached sustainability from an environmental perspective, the event this year included sustainability of culture, such as African American history.

That is what volunteers did at the African American Museum of Beginnings in Pomona, where students cleaned, organized books and read to children.

Speech communication major Bradlee Johnson, President of the Black Student Union, helped archive books for the museum and read for the children.

“I always love participating in the Day of Service because one of my mother’s mantras is ‘If you have, give,’” Johnson said. “So I’m honored to be able to give back in little ways to the community and I was glad that I got to spend my day at the museum because I, too, learned so much about my heritage and they served me in many ways as well.”

Student A.J. Johnson, who also worked at the museum, said cataloging books is a small act, but can impact many.

“King’s philosophy of life was that we are all intertwined together in this huge world and any action, whether positive or negative, has some kind of influence and reverberates to the rest of the world,” Johnson said.

Director of Institutional Research Leeshawn Moore, who also serves as adviser for the Black Student Union, said the students’ work is part of a project to build a new database at the museum.
She read the picture book “Martin’s Big Words” to children, sharing with them Dr. King’s story and his beliefs. She also encouraged children to do their own research and write about King’s legacy.

“It was a very rich day,” Moore said. “It was a very fulfilling day to work with these young people to help build something in a community that needs it.”

At the Pomona Armory, students assembled tote bags out of T-shirts for the homeless to use at food pantries. Volunteers at Hillcrest Homes and Inland Valley Hope Partners – a nonprofit organization that provides food and shelter for the needy – also worked with La Verne to assemble tote bags. In all, volunteers created 500 bags for the homeless, Gradilla said.

Provost Jonathan Reed joined other volunteers at Kingsley Elementary School in Pomona to paint a mural of a diverse group of children.

“It was very positive messaging,” Gradilla said.