The New York State Commission on National and Community Service encourages all New York national service programs to participate in Martin Luther King Service events each year. In 2010, the State Commission was directly involved with New York’s MLK Day Celebration at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, debuting the Commission’s new Public Service Announcement to attendees and informing attendees about ways to volunteer in their communities.

Congratulations to all New York State Citizens who answer our President and Governor’s Call to Service each day of the year!

While many events occurred throughout the state, below is a sampling of New York’s MLK Day activities:

Student Conservation Association AmeriCorps

On Tuesday January 19th, 2010, service members with the SCA Hudson Valley AmeriCorps program recognized Martin Luther King Jr. Day by serving at the Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library. The Library is a grassroots initiative located in the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, focusing on the African contribution to history and culture. With an informative collection of books, videos, and programming for all ages, the Library has built pride among African-American children. The African Roots Library has a growing collection of materials authored by people of color, and also serves the Poughkeepsie community by providing after-school activities for local youth. The SCA Hudson Valley Corps assisted with shelving library materials, computer maintenance, and general library clean-up. Corps members living in the area also hope to become involved in future educational programs offered by the Library. SCA members learned a great deal from volunteer library staff, while working hard and having fun.

Red Hook Public Safety Corps

The Red Hook Public Safety Corps partnered with local schools in the area to spread awareness about service and to unite the community. The day began with AmeriCorps Members giving an overview of MLK Day and the meaning of volunteerism. Following this members of the community were brought together to create a unity quilt which will highlight the" meaning of community" . Members ended the day with a park cleanup and creation of bird feeders with kids from the local schools.

New York City Coalition Against Hunger

In just three days, over 450 volunteers served over 1,500 hours at over 30 soup kitchens and food pantries across New York City. Our three days of volunteer events were attended by Congressman Anthony Weiner, State Senator Liz Kruger, City Council People Gail Brewer and Inez Dickens, the Corporation for National Community Service’s Donna Smith, and Diana Ross’ daughter and Girlfriends actress, Tracee Ellis Ross. We also had significant success in recruiting people for much-needed skills-based volunteer work at pantries and kitchens.

Genesee County AmeriCorps

In the spirit of Martin Luther King Day, the Genesee County AmeriCorps program, in partnership with RSVP of Genesee Co., hosted the first annual “Be a Star-GO Volunteer!” Fair. The goal of this event was to connect potential volunteers with organizations that rely on their service, and we did just that! 25 agencies attended, representing a broad cross section of the community, and nearly 30 people from the general public attended. In a matter of just 2 hours, RSVP signed up 2 new volunteers, the Salvation Army got the contact information for 10 individuals, and the County Park spoke with three interested people, two of which came to an event the very next day! These successes, amongst others, were highlighted on the front page of our local newspaper. One of the unanticipated benefits of bringing together so many service organizations was the networking that resulted. A VISTA member representing the Red Cross felt that he made, “many great connections,” and two agencies which happened to be sitting at the same table realized that they should be referring clients to each others’ services. Even though the fair was small, this concept has great potential within our county. We look forward to sustaining and expanding this project in the future.

NYS Emergency Management/American Red Cross

Across New York, AmeriCorps State and AmeriCorps VISTA members serving with the Red Cross sponsored or participated in events focused on engaging individuals in service and bringing a sense of unity to local communities. More than ever, we are proud to host such programs that exemplify the spirit of Dr. King’s dream and the AmeriCorps mission of “Getting Things Done”.

Buffalo AmeriCorps

The 2010 MLK Day of Service kicked off from The Belle Center as Buffalo AmeriCorps partnered with PUSH Buffalo and Buffalo Bill-Chris Draft to brush up the West side of Buffalo. There were 69 volunteers and 24 Buffalo AmeriCorps volunteers performing service at 1 of 5 project sites. Together, over 15 rooms were painted in 5 community centers and offices. Attached are some photos of our day of service.

Oswego AmeriCorps

Oswego AmeriCorps members came together on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 and Monday, January 18th, 2010 (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day) with two service events to honor Dr. King’s legacy of service in the Oswego community.

On Saturday, January 16th the members participated in a Salvation Army soup kitchen located temporarily at St. Mary’s. They cooked and served a chili lunch to approximately 30 people and provided a box of children’s toys for the attendees to take. On Sunday, January 18th, 2010, some members helped to put on activities related to Dr. King’s teachings about peace for the children at the School’s Out program at the Oswego YMCA. The children enjoyed the activities and all the crafts they were able to do, such as putting together a “Dr. King message quilt” and making peace bracelets. Another activity they enjoyed was the Disability Obstacle Course that included wearing big glasses that were mostly covered with tape and shooting a basketball to simulate a visual disability.

Rochester AmeriCorps

On the day that celebrates the life and achievement of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., 40 local AmeriCorps members, nine Rochester Youth Year VISTA members and 13 members of the City of Rochester P.R.I.M.E. Program (a job readiness program) worked together at two Volunteers of America locations.

The Rochester AmeriCorps MLK Day Project brought together the three programs to assist Rochester’s Volunteers of America, an organization dedicated to enabling people in our community break the cycle of poverty and reach their full potential. At the Lake Avenue address, volunteers sorted, painted and beautified the facility. A second group of volunteers cleaned, sorted, organized and disinfected at the Ward St. shelter.

Community Counseling and Mediation

On Sunday, January 17, 2010, eighteen CCM AmeriCorps members gathered at P.S. 57 James Weldon Johnson School in East Harlem, NY to assist Children for Children’s event set up for the MLK day event on the following day. The members were responsible for carrying and setting up tables to be used for service projects on the following day. The members worked with other volunteers in an effort to prepare for the next day’s event. One of the biggest jobs of the day was the laying of a massive amount of paper and tape on the schools’ entire gym floor. This particular job took almost all of the members’ effort in order to complete. The other members assisted downstairs with preparing the tables to be used for volunteer and participant sign-up. In addition, other member tasks involved creating signs for the next day’s event.

As a whole, members worked very intensely and closely with the staff of Children for Children in preparation for the following day in event which anticipated 2,000 youth would participate.

SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps

Tim Roy supervised the building of a shed for Habitat for Humanity. His volunteers included Matt Cranson (Americorps of YAP), his three mentees, and one more 17 y.o. male (whose mother and sister are part of the girl scout troop mentioned later in this email). They built the base, the flooring, and the frames of the walls. They very much enjoyed themselves, they learned a lot, and they had snowball fights between loads. They all worked 9am-11:30am.

At Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care center, Margaret Page had 3 volunteers, including Katie Coutu (Americorps VISTA for Endicott Habitat for Humanity), who helped residents to the community room where everyone watched a documentary on Martin Luther King, Jr. Afterwards, volunteers sat with residents and discussed their experiences. Margaret looks forward to doing even more with us next year.

Chad Hovey and Sheila Cohen ran the Children's program from 3:30-5pm. Tim Rodriguez helped set up the projector and they played some of Democracy Now's MLK Day broadcast. Katie (Chad's wife) took photos. Chad reported that there were 10 kids (about age 10) and 4 adults who participated, including Holden Slattery (reporter from the Cortland Standard). Some of those children and adults were the same girl scouts and leaders that helped at the YWCA. Chad is still making quilt pieces with other children that he works with through AmeriCorps. He will assemble them and display them at the Beard Gallery (9 Main Street) by the end of the week and it will stay there until the next showing in February.

The Community Conversation had 10 attendees. Also, Holden Slattery attended part of it and did small interviews with each of the attendees. Americorps attendees were Sarah Wilsey (volunteered 2-5pm) of Cornell Cooperative Ext., Brandon Dutcher of City Youth Bureau, Stephanie Plude of Cortland Downtown Partnership and SUNY Institute for Civic Engagement , and Tim Rodriguez of SUNY Institute for Civic Engagement (volunteered 11:30-5pm). Cortland High School students from Lori Megivern's class attended. Older community members who attended were Dan Mullins, Robert Rhodes, and Sheila Cohen. The event was diverse in terms of age, background, sexual orientation, and gender. Everyone was light skinned, except for FreddyWe read the excerpt round robin and discussed it a bit. Then we shared some personal experiences of being a victim and/or a prepetrator of prejudice. We tried to come up with answers of how to address the issue, in general and in Cortland specifically. At the end, we came up with several events and local organizations that we would like to participate with.