Print
Share page with AddThis

Human Rights Commission Bringing Back MLK Day of Service, Seeking Event Hosts & Service Ideas

“Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Posted on: December 15, 2022 - 6:00pm
MLK Day of Service

The Melrose Human Rights Commission is excited to be bringing back the annual MLK Day of Service on Monday, January 16, 2023, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic and is currently looking for community organizations to host a location for a service activity during this community-wide event.

About Martin Luther King’s (MLK) Day of Service

In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating MLK Day as a national day of service - a day ON, not a day off. The MLK Day of Service is meant to empower individuals, strengthen communities and move us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a “Beloved Community”. In Dr. King’s Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it.

For years, the Melrose Human Rights Commission (HRC) has organized several community service activities that take place throughout the city on MLK Day. On this city-wide MLK Day of Service, hundreds of people from all over Melrose will sign-up for service activities across the city between the hours of 10 a.m. — 12 p.m.

Examples of Previous Years’ Activities

  • Shopping for school snacks & food pantry needs
  • Making cards for patients and staff of Melrose-Wakefield Hospital
  • MLK kid-friendly art activity 
  • Melting crayons
  • Prepping meals for a local food pantry
  • Cleaning the Melrose Public Library
  • Interviewing a Melrose senior citizen
  • Collecting donations for Malden Warming Center, Housing Families, and local food pantries

Share a Service Idea or Host an Event

The success of this day of service is contingent upon community organizations helping to brainstorm a service idea and/or hosting the event.

Organizations with a service idea and/or would be interested in hosting volunteers to complete a service activity can fill out this Google Form by or before December 21, 2022. Please be prepared to fill in the idea of service activity, the host location, and how many community volunteers you can feasibly host.

Please reach out to the HRC at melrosehrc@gmail.com if you need assistance with finding a space to host and/or a community service idea. The HRC already has some organizations with a service idea but lack a venue and some organizations have the space to host but are needing a community-service idea. The HRC would love to help pair you up!