How CNCS made MLK Day More than Just a Holiday
by Kate Hagner
This year we celebrate MLK Day’s 20th anniversary as a national day of service. While the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr has been a federal holiday since the early eighties, it wasn’t until 1994, when an act of Congress created the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), that we began to observe the date as a “day on, not a day off.”
For these twenty years the Corporation for National and Community Service — the same federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps, one of SCA’s longstanding partners — has led this effort. SCA, AmeriCorps, and the MLK Day of Service are proof that all of us as Americans have the power to build our own solutions to the challenges we face as a nation, including challenges to our natural environment.
Dr. King said, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve”. This year, celebrate two decades of national service with a day on. At SCA, this is what we’re all about. Grab your coat and join one of SCA’s service events or use CNCS’s MLK Day of Service website to find one of the thousands of other service events taking places in all corners of the nation.
This MLK Day I’ll be serving at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, where biologists are creating a statewide data bank to assess threats faced by bumblebee populations and develop a conservation plan. Where will you be?
Check our events page for a complete listing of SCA’s MLK Day service opportunites.
For additional service opportunites throught the USA check CNCS’s MLKDay.gov.