UPDATE: This was a date specific event, but search the Arlington County website for MLK Tributes and Days of Service for the current year.
Monday, January 17th, 2011 is a Federal holiday to celebrate Martin Luther King’s Birthday and Arlington will once again pay tribute in several ways. On Sunday, January 16, 2011 from 7-9PM the 42nd Annual Tribute Celebration will be held at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center Auditorium. Horace Holmes from ABC7/WJLA-TV will be the Master of Ceremonies for the tribute which will also feature Keynote Speaker Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, activist and friend of Dr. King, the World Childrens’ Choir and the Washington-Lee Jazz Band.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?'” Each year, Americans across the country come together on the King Holiday to serve their neighbors and communities in what has been proclaimed a national “Day of Service”.
Hold your own service project or join in with Arlington’s AmeriCorps team who will be holding a neighborhood & stream cleanup from 10 am to noon on . Monday, January 17, 10:00 a.m. to noon. Volunteers will meet at Arlington Mill Community Center, 4975 Columbia Pike to clean up a section of Columbia Pike and Four Mile Run stream and keep trash out of Arlington County’s largest stream watershed. Please register at volunteer@arlingtonenvironment.org or 703-228-6406.
Also on Monday, January 17, from 1 – 4 pm volunteers are needed to help AmeriCorps at Gulf Branch Nature Center, 3608 Military Rd, to remove invasive plants that are smothering our forest floor and strangling trees. They suggest you dress warmly, wear clothes that can get dirty, and bring work or gardening gloves and clippers if you have them. Call Gulf Branch at 703-228-3403 for more information.
Each of us can contribute to strengthening our own communities by serving in Dr. King’s honor on the King Holiday and throughout the year. The King Center website says that “King Day is a time for realizing that each of us has the power to help alleviate poverty, build community and foster peace through nonviolence, if only we have the courage and commitment to work for it.”
If you’re interested in finding other service project in this area or registering one of your own, visit http://mlkday.gov/.
