MLK Day of Service

With Martin Luther King Jr. Day upon us, it's time to enact the dormant civic idealism awakened by Obama's campaign slogan, "Change," and serve our communities on our day off next Monday, January 19th.

If you're in D.C. for the inauguration, you can take part in any number of volunteer opportunities. Greater D.C. Cares is organizing over 500 volunteers to help out in six local public schools, painting lockers, classrooms, and touching up murals. We Feed Our People, in conjunction with the Mayor's Office on Volunteerism, will serve warm meals to over 400 people while hosting a health fair. And the D.C. government has compiled a list of community service projects for this year's MLK Day of Service. Projects range from serving breakfast to the homeless, winterizing a fishpond at a community health clinic, tutoring a child, cleaning up a park, or sorting donated food at a food bank. You can volunteer all day or just an hour or two.

Check out the MLK Day of Service website to search their database of volunteer opportunities throughout the country to find a project in your area. Or visit Obama's own service site to pop in your zip code, and find a project that matches your availability and skills.

Are you volunteering next Monday? What projects are available in your city?

Photo: Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial, by Paul Schitzer via Life Magazine Archive