MLK Day 2020 promotes Day of Service

MLK Day 2020 promotes Day of Service

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For the 34th year, Rowan University honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 20 with its annual scholarship breakfast but this year’s program emphasized a new tradition.

Following a lavish breakfast courtesy of Rowan’s food service provider, Gourmet Dining, and a keynote address by legendary dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison, many attendees committed to a few hours of community service.

Of more than 275 attendees in the Eynon Ballroom of the Chamberlain Student Center, more than 100 stayed to roll up their sleeves and work, volunteering for such organizations as Camden’s Cathedral Kitchen and the Gloucester County Animal Shelter.

Jamison, a longtime star and artistic director emerita of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City, referred to the work of Dr. King and the men and women of the Civil Rights Movement as a fitting example for the volunteers.

“They understood that the nature of man is not to be hurting each other,” Jamison said. “It’s to be uplifting each other.”

The annual breakfast raises thousands of dollars to support the William H. Myers Scholarship fund, and this year benefited 21 students from across the University.

A native Philadelphian, Jamison recalled growing up in church, falling in love with the music, the dancing and the pageantry of the services, and being caught up in the events of the day, in Dr. King’s leadership in a non-violent march for civil rights.

She predicted better, quieter times ahead, despite 2020's unsettled political environment.

“There are Dr. Kings rising,” Jamison said. “You will see the seeds he planted.”

As the breakfast program concluded, attendees fanned out around the Student Center and off campus to help others.

Doctoral student Fatmata Kabia of Atco said celebrating MLK Day has become a tradition for her family but they were especially moved by an opportunity to help others.

“Being able to give back, to think of it as a day on, rather than a day off, felt right,” she said.

Among various activities, workers made roughly 50 appreciation bags made for the Volunteer Center of South Jersey, 60 winter kits for health provider ACENDA of Glassboro and 132 pet toys for the Gloucester County Animal Shelter. They assembled 500 utensil kits and prepared 1,100 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Camden’s Cathedral Kitchen and volunteered at the Historic West Jersey Depot in Glassboro, Mothers Matter, Samaritan Center and Mullica Gardens, an assisted living center, also in Glassboro.

Helping make pet toys for the Animal Shelter, senior Chynna Mitchell, an Africana Studies and psychology major, said she and other members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority routinely perform community service but, for her, donating a few hours on the last day of winter break felt personal.

“Dr. King’s wife was a member of our organization but that’s not why I’m here,” she said. “I was raised on the principle that because I have, it’s important to give back.”