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PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) — Many people throughout the Pacific Northwest are remembering Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy by spending the day volunteering in their community.
On Monday, hundreds of volunteers spent MLK Day of Service helping out by planting trees, feeding people in need, or cleaning up local parks.
Kaiser Permanente employees were at Oliver Elementary School to help paint and clean up the school.
At the Oregon Food Bank, Bank of America employees and their families spent their day off filling up food boxes for those in need.
The words and actions of Martin Luther King Jr. still inspire Americans today.
“Martin Luther King isn’t just a holiday were you go off and do something, this is the MLK Day of Service. So to me, it was important to go out and act on the opportunity to show and demonstrate the value of community service,” said Rich Brown, SVP, Environmental Program Director at Bank of America.
“Dr. King was not just an inspirational civil rights leader, he was a rebel and a warrior for justice, and in his last months, he was working on a campaign specifically working on hunger and employment and homelessness. That was a multiracial cause saying that economic injustice, no one would ever be free while they were suffering economic injustice,” said Susannah Morgan, CEO at Oregon Food Bank. “So we feel like we are honoring Dr. King’s legacy by bringing a light on hunger and by using the work of feeding people today to be a catalyst for changing the systems that perpetuate poverty.”
Dr. King once said, “The time is always right to do what is right,” so many feel it is fitting that everyone honors this man’s legacy with a day of service.
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