MLK Day!

Wow. It's hard to believe it was only a week ago. On MLK Day, January 18th, City Year hosted an extravagant volunteer project at MS 424 and 3 other sites in the Bronx. We had over 1,000 volunteers show up to help paint classrooms & murals, build bookcases & benches. Now that it's over, it's amazing. Behind the scenes, the prep work was extensive. Many Corps members, myself included, were asked to come throughout the week and sketch murals, cut wood, tape off areas, and get the various locations ready for transformation. On the Thursday before MLK day I worked at my school from 7:45 until 3 and then traveled out to the Bronx to prep until 9pm. Then, on Friday the entire Corps was prepping

Instead of doing the actual service, City Year offers Corps members the chance to take on a leadership role. There was an application and interview process before Christmas break and they chose people to take on a different type of role for the day. Some people headed up their own group of volunteers and managed their projects. I was in charge of a paint station which entailed passing out paints to volunteers. Because of the high volumes of people and the accidents that have probably taken place in the past, City Year plays it safe and assigns paint captains to be the ONLY person to handle paint.

The projects turned out great and although I didn't take any pictures, the Director of City Year New York was walking around to all the different sites that day and taking pictures. It's a really cool documentation of the day and shows off some of the City Year culture. Here's the link in case you want to check it out...

Pictures