Over 1,000 volunteers partcipated in a day of service to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at LA Academy Middle School.
Liz Warden, Corps Member
While most people have Martin Luther King Day off, for us, it’s a “day on.” MLK Day is City Year’s biggest service day of the year; City Year corps members around the country honor Martin Luther King’s legacy of building a strong community and promoting peace and justice. Sure, our students can wear us out. Yes, we serve 10 hours a day. However, if we took this day off, we wouldn’t be true to our service.
Here in Los Angeles, City Year brought together 1,054 Angelenos to beautify Los Angeles Academy Middle School’s campus. LA Academy, located in South Los Angeles, has 2,082 students and 100 percent of the students are considered to be economically disadvantaged.
The Walt Disney Company was the presenting sponsor of the event. They provided 100 volunteers and underwrote much of the cost of the service day. It’s empowering to see people from our community stepping up to help make a difference in our public schools. Today showed me that I’m not – nor my fellow corps members – are alone in this effort.
CYLA kicked off the day by hosting an opening ceremony. Speakers included Kevin Callahan, Vice President of Disney Corporate Citizenship, Roberto Martinez, LAUSD Local District 5 Supt., and Maria Borges, LA Academy’s principal. Volunteers participated in warm-up activity with our Physical Training team.
Other volunteers included 100 teachers and students from LA Academy and other local schools, community organizations, and the business community such as Starbucks, JPMorgan Chase, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.
In the past, LA Academy has been used as a stand-in for prison scenes in movies and television shows. After today, there’s 28 different, new, colorful and inspiring murals that will create a positive school climate, which is an important first step to getting students wanting to come to school and learn.
Our E! Entertainment Civic Engagement team, a group of six corps members that bring the community together to beautify schools around Los Angeles, spent three months planning and designing the murals. The principal had our CE art designer Amy Plouff to spearhead the designs, but had one suggestion. She wanted to design a mural centered around Margaret Mead’s quote, “Never doubt that a group of small, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
After serving about five months in City Year, I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve heard that quote. I love that the principal of LA Academy even wants the students to be exposed to this philosophy, which may motivate them to serve in their community someday. Moreover, organizing this service day really hit home for some of our CE corps members like Unique Harston, who attended LA Academy 11 years ago.
The CE Team made sure the murals were family friendly by designing them with large graphics so any age could help paint. At City Year, we value diversity and teamwork. Today, I saw community members, school staff and students from all different backgrounds peacefully work together to transform this school. MLK’s vision called for a “beloved community” – a community of uniting people for a common purpose – and as demonstrated today and every MLK Day, City Year Los Angeles accomplishes just that.
Take a look at more coverage from the day!
- To Honor King, Volunteers Spruce up a School - LA Times
- UCLA students, alumni joins City Year LA’ service day honoring Martin Luther King Jr. - The Daily Bruin
- A School’s MLK Day Makeover – Neon Tommy – Anneberg Digital News
