MANAYUNK

By Rachel Jenkins

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “the time is always ripe to do right.” But every year on the holiday set aside in his honor, the time feels especially right.

Eighteen years after his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was passed as a federal holiday in 1986. Philadelphia joined the nationwide effort to make MLK Day a day of service in 1996, and has grown to become the biggest MLK Day of Service—all in the spirit of the man himself. Organized through Global Citizen, an estimated 700,000 volunteers have donated their time to communities in greater Philadelphia since the project began over 20 years ago. Today, the good people of Manayunk and beyond added to that number and joined in the tradition of making MLK Day a ‘day on.’

Volunteers met at the Fountain Street steps bright and early. Over 120 neighbors, residents, and students from St. Joseph’s University came together to clean up and make the neighborhood a little brighter. Everyone pitched in to help with raking, picking up debris from trees, and pruning shrubs along the steps and the canal path. After just a few hours, the area looked tidy and ready to face the rest of the winter.

We’d like to extend a special thanks to everyone who gave their time on this sunny winter morning and helped make the cleanup a success. It was another productive MLK Day of Service for the books, and the neighborhood appreciates your good deed. If you would like to get involved with a service project throughout the year or organize a project for MLK Day of Service 2018, visit http://mlkdayofservice.org/.

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