Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service

I attended the Martin Luther King, Junior Day of service for my International Affairs service credit. The day began around 7:30 a.m., when a group of my fellow IA Scholars and I were instructed to meet in the lobby of Smith-Steeb at that time. We were under the impression that someone from IA would walk us over; however, we were mistaken (shade no shade Steven). Instead, we had to take matters into our own hands and decided that it was time to head over to the Union—where we all would be separated into different service groups—because we feared being turned away if we had waited too long (since they had a maximum amount people who they were accepting to help). After entering the Union, we all quickly got split up into a series of lines, varying from necessary information for the day to getting breakfast. It was really considerate of the people “sorting” the groups because they allowed whole groups of people to receive the same wristband color, which meant that they would be sent to the same service location. After entering one of the large ballrooms in the Union, we were escorted to our section, based on wristband color, and told about where we would be volunteering for the day. After everyone was sorted, there was a series of tributes to only Martin Luther King, Jr., but also to Aretha Franklin. I could definitely feel a sense of community among everyone in the room, and it was really inspirational to witness and be a part of.

We then loaded the buses and headed to COSI—our designated location. It was only my second time being there (the first time being only a few days prior), and it was a fantastic experience to watch how helpful a small group of college students could be. When we arrived, the coordinators explained to us how they hope to expand the knowledge one can gain at COSI to other classrooms across the United States and even across the world. We were asked to help assemble their packages, which would be sent to these various locations, contained with a variety of unique science experiments. Each task would have been extremely daunting to complete by oneself (and quite frankly would have taken hours to complete), but with the help of about 30 students, we were able to complete all of our designate do tasks in about an hour and a half. Going in to this day of service, I really did not know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised to witness so many strangers bonding over a common goal.

It was really nice to be given the opportunity to give back to the community, and it was a really fun day! I gained experience working as a part of a large group to complete tasks in the most efficient manner possible. It was also really incredible using the introduction of that day to give credit and thanks where it is due. It seems especially important currently, as we are in Black History Month, to identify those figures that made this integrated society we live in now even possible in the first place.

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