‘It’s Dr. King’s dream’: Volunteers in Kansas City step up at MLK Day service events
With her children grown and moved out, Diane Fennesy recently found herself with more time on her hands and, at age 61, beginning a new chapter in her life.
The Lee’s Summit resident made it a goal to start volunteering.
A few weeks ago she snagged one of the last Martin Luther King Jr. Day volunteer slots at the Harvesters food bank’s main facility on Topping Avenue in Kansas City. It was another Harvester’s location where she had first gone to volunteer last fall, drawn in by an interest in the problems of food insecurity and homelessness. She was soon hooked on helping.
“I think it’s wonderful that we’ve put aside this day of service,” Fennesy said as she sorted dry goods into bins Monday morning. “People don’t normally think of that.”
“Just try one thing,” she recommended to those interested in getting involved. “Just take that first step.”
Across Kansas City on Monday, volunteers stepped up at food banks, civic organizations and schools that hosted activities as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day tradition of service to others.
Some, like Fennesy, packaged food for the hungry. Others prepared hygiene kits for unhoused neighbors or hosted an event to help working families become homeowners. At more than a dozen events around the city, volunteers embraced such action as a way of making the holiday — the only one designated by Congress as a day of service — “a day ON” rather than a day off,” as advocates at the Harvesters food bank said of their event.
The holiday’s focus on a day of service is often summed up with a quote from King’s widow, author and activist Coretta Scott King: “The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others.”
‘It makes me feel happy because you’re helping people’
Monica Roland, 46, of Kansas City, has been bringing her son, Braylan, 11, to Harvesters since he was 8. Together they taped up boxes of sugar Monday.
Roland said she didn’t grow up volunteering, but now that’s she’s a mother, it’s important to show her son the value of giving back, especially on MLK Day, even though he probably would’ve voted to stay home and watch TV on his day off instead.
But he didn’t seem to mind too much once he was there.
“It makes me feel happy because you’re helping people,” Braylan said, clutching a large tape dispenser. “It’s a fun place. People should come out.”
The Harvesters event had a waitlist for volunteers Monday morning after nearly 400 people signed up to work. They spent the day sorting and packing nonperishable food, fresh produce and bread, among other food items.
Harvesters spokeswoman Sarah Biles said the food bank recognized that much of what King stood for was coming together and helping neighbors. The annual MLK Day event continues to be the day the nonprofit sees its largest crowds of eager helpers each year.
‘This is my community’
For Janet Harris, the Martin Luther King Jr. day of service event at the Linwood YMCA in Kansas City was about giving back to a community she calls home.
Now in her 60s, Harris has lived in the Linwood neighborhood for nearly her whole life. She attended Milton Moore Elementary School, Central Middle School and Central High School, all within several blocks of the YMCA.
“This is my community; I’m of this community,” Harris said. “Wherever I’m needed, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Over 100 volunteers gathered at the YMCA on Linwood Boulevard to prepare care packages for the city’s unhoused population. Harris joined a group making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Other volunteers then added the sandwiches to care packages with other items like toiletries, socks, affirmation cards and menstrual products.
“I believe Martin Luther King would have something like this, giving to the community,” Harris added. “Homelessness, lack of food, it’s everywhere, it’s in every community. We just have to be prepared to give. I’m just glad to be here today.”
André Sigler Jr., the Linwood YMCA’s executive director, coordinated the day of service events.
“We wanted to make sure we highlighted the legacy of Martin Luther King, not just being the guy who was a pioneer for civil rights, but as an individual he always had the idea of serving others, doing something bigger than himself,” Sigler said.
“His speeches and all of that is important. But his legacy will be remembered for the way he served his community and made sure they had a voice.”
‘Another step forward’
Simran Mohan, 15, of Kansas City, said her purpose for joining the Harvesters volunteer crews Monday was larger than just earning service hours for school. She also felt a calling to help.
That meant sacrificing a chance to sleep in and catch up on homework to instead come out to sort pallets of non-perishable food with her mom and brother.
But it was worth it, she said, especially in honor of King.
“I think he had an idea to help people feel more included and this is just another step forward into that in his dreams,” Mohan said.
The freshman at the Barstow School wants to keep volunteering even after she hits her service hours requirement. She said the awesome feeling of helping people get through another day or week is motivation enough.
“It’s just like joy and happiness knowing that you’ll be able to maybe not see it, but know that you’ve impacted a child or a mother’s smile,” she said.
‘It’s cool to help people’
Adriane New, 47, of Blue Springs, brought the two oldest of her four children along to volunteer at Harvesters.
Gabe, 12, and TJ, 10, were at work Monday morning taping up boxes of sugar and sugar-free cereal.
New said every year on this national day of service they try to find a way to give back. Harvesters is one of the only opportunities she’s found for younger children.
They talked about King in school and New talked to them about the importance of service, so he boys didn’t mind the early morning wake up call.
“We’re all a global society, we need to be able to give back in whatever way fits for people, whether it’s fostering or animals or food, we have to show our younger generation how important it is to give to others, especially when you are blessed, so that’s what we’re working on,” New said.
“It’s cool to help people,” Gabe added.
Asked why it’s important to volunteer on MLK Day, his younger brother, TJ, cut in:
“Oh I know. Because Martin Luther King said you have to give to the elderly so we’re giving to people who don’t have food or can’t go get food. It feels good.”
‘Anything to help somebody else’
Volunteer Tiffanie J. knows firsthand the challenges of being homeless.
She said she experienced homelessness herself “off and on for about two years” before moving to Kansas City in August. She now lives at Sisters in Christ, a transitional supportive housing organization. The Star is identifying her by her first name and initial so that she could speak freely about her experience with homelessness.
She and other volunteers in the center’s large gymnasium strung plastic grocery bags together into long chains to be “crocheted” into a lightweight but durable mattress pad. Tiffanie said she has seen some of the mattress pads in use among the homeless community back in her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas.
“The bags will help so you don’t have to sleep on the ground,” she told The Star. “It builds a barrier. You can make it big enough to where they can lay on it and fold it over.”
While Sisters in Christ arranged transportation to the event, she added that she still would have volunteered even without their encouragement.
“I’m always excited. I try to stay that way,” she said. “I like stuff like this. Anything to help somebody else.”
‘It’s Dr. King’s dream’
Co-workers Lisa Towler and Stahr Ashurst are GEHA Gives ambassadors — a program supporting employees of the Government Employees Health Association who do regular community service work.
“Any chance I can (get) to help anybody, I’ll do it,” said Towler. She added that for her, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is about “working together with anybody and everybody, no matter what.”
She and Ashurst chose to start their day of service in the affirmation cards room, where volunteers wrote encouraging messages on colorful paper and packed donated socks to be added to the care packages. They said they planned to help wherever they were needed most during the event.
“I wanted to do something today, for MLK Day, because it’s a day of service,” said Ashurst. “It’s the community, (and) it’s Dr. King’s dream. That sounds kind of corny, but it is.”
Homeownership for Black people
At the Black Archives of Mid-America in the historic 18th and Vine district, hundreds of community members and sisters with the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority came together for a day of service in honor of King’s legacy.
Meredyth Vick, president of the sorority’s Mu Omega chapter in Kansas City, Kansas, said members from four graduate chapters, including in Grandview and Overland Park, held their programs this year under one roof. Among the initiatives Monday was collecting food for elementary school children and cataloging books for the Black Archives’ library.
Another program was a seminar that provided tips on how to become a homeowner. More than 70 people registered, prompted by the question, “Are you tired of renting (paying someone else’s mortgage) and want to know what it takes to own your own home?”
Gwen Goins, a sorority sister who has been a mortgage banker since 1986, helped lead the event, going over the basics of credit and home financing. She said statistics show that only 40% of eligible African-Americans purchase homes, which she believes is because of a lack of information on the home buying process.
“To gap the generational wealth disparity that we have,” Goins said, homeownership for Black people “is the fastest, easiest way to build generational wealth.”
Annual SCLC King celebration
In addition to the volunteer activities Monday, Kansas City community leaders hosted celebrations and forums to honor King’s life and his legacy of racial justice and economic equity.
Among the events was the Southern Christian Leadership Council of Greater Kansas City’s annual citywide MLK Mass Celebration and Forum at Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church on 2310 E. Linwood Blvd.
The SCLC event — which each year focuses on an aspect of King’s work connected to issues affecting Kansas City’s Black community today — focused on a push for reparations for Black Kansas Citians.
