United, We Serve

On Monday, the crowds that had gathered the day before to witness the Inaugural kickoff concert at the Lincoln Memorial dispersed throughout the district as part of the second day of Inaugural festivities, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service.

All over the city, individuals and groups partook in various community service projects. For the GW College Democrats, that meant heading off to Shaw Junior High School to work with the Jewish Community Center (JCC) on several service projects. With the help of many other volunteers as well as the CDs, the Jewish Community Center sorted thousands of books for the public school’s library and prepared healthy snack packages for the kids, which included Cheerios and raisins.

Another project spear-headed by the JCC which was undertaken by members of the CDs, including Community Service Director Bekah Medley, was the decorating of a bench made to symbolize human rights, using photos of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a friend of King’s who also adamantly believed in the importance of human rights.

This was not the only community service event that took place in DC. Thousands of volunteers gathered at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium to join Operation Gratitude in assembling care packages for our men and women overseas.

Even the President- and Vice President-Elect got in on the action: Barack Obama helped paint at a local shelter, and Joe Biden helped to build a house. Obama noted, while rolling blue paint onto the walls, that over 5,000 community service groups engaged in some service activity that day.

-Alex Laska