On Friday Jan. 13, Reading Partners San Francisco Bay Area staff and AmeriCorps members participated in a full day of volunteering with Alameda Point Collaborative to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The federal holiday was first observed in 1986, but in 1994 Congress designated it a national day of service as well. As the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service, MLK Day of Service encourages people all around the country to take a “day on, not a day off.”
Partnering with APC, Reading Partners SF Bay Area decided just that–to take a “day on, not a day off.” Normally collaborating with under resourced schools around the country, Reading Partners trains volunteers to provide individualized, one-on-one reading support students need to read at grade level by fourth grade. Reading Partners SF Bay Area works with communities in San Mateo, San Francisco, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties.
However, on Friday nearly 70 staff and AmeriCorps members from Reading Partners SF Bay Area came to APC to complete a variety of community improvement projects. Two groups cleaned and painted the Education and Teen Centers which both provide safe spaces for academic enrichment activities for APC youth. A third group cleaned and painted inspirational quotes in the Services Center, which houses career services, support specialists, and licensed therapists. Other groups worked at Ploughshares Nursery and Farm2Market prepping for the spring and spray-painting directions on the sidewalks to the various sites at APC.
Reading Partners proved to be great volunteers to work with and had a tremendously positive impact on the APC community. We thank them for choosing to take a “day on, not a day off” in honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with APC.
