I don't know about you, but when I think about MLK Jr the first thing that pops into my mind isn't soup kitchens or homeless shelters or street cleaning. Or at least, it wasn't.
For 16 years, Philadelphia has hosted the MLK Day of Service where instead of taking a day off from work or school people decide to donate their time to the service of their neighbors in need.
My senior year of high school some good friends and I spent a memorable day sorting inventorying* in-kind donations of office supplies** stacked floor to ceiling in a tiny room. We were avoiding avalanches and valiantly leaping over boxes of pencils and stacks of desks spreading ourselves throughout the room to make sure no box was left unaccounted for. Our fearless self-elected point person fielded shouts from unseen corners and marked accordingly on the clipboard, "I've got 16 uh, I guess these are notepad covers or something, over here."
What would have taken one person a lifetime and one of these to accomplish took the 6 of us just four or five hours. Time that an understaffed, under resourced non-profit could probably use better.
The MLK Jr. quote everyone uses for this day is:
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'"
I think Dr. King took this idea pretty seriously. It's hard for us to think this way; I kind of want the day off on Monday. But the truth about service is that it isn't just a day, it's a lifestyle. It's a persistent question in our lives.
Mural at 40th and Lancaster in Philadelphia
Sign next to mural
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*I'm coining this new word.
**Apparently a box of Nat King Cole video cassettes is considered office supplies.
Ah the good old days of MLK day volunteering. I remember doing inventorying (just trying it out) my senior year.
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