“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” – Martin Luther King, Jr. The Waynesville R-VI School District, Waynesville AmeriCorps*VISTA, and Waynesville AmeriCorps responded to this vital question with full force on Friday, January 13, 2012. Functioning as a team, we pulled together to provide our students with a meaningful service and educational experience in honor of Dr. King. The Waynesville Middle School served as “home base” for the day’s activities, with all 7th and 8th grade students getting the opportunity to participate in the Day of Service either on or off campus.

AmeriCorps volunteers organized and accompanied over 100 middle school and high school students out into the community to serve at multiple non-profit agencies including a food pantry, animal shelters and senior centers. The volunteers and students learned how poverty affects our community, packed food boxes for those in need, played games with senior citizens and created dog adoption kits, among other things.

That morning, eighth grade students traveled to three elementary schools where they visited 32 classrooms to educate younger students about Dr. King. With the help of AmeriCorps and student volunteers, each elementary student drew a picture of their “dream for the future” on a cloud, cut out the clouds, and attached them to an “I Have a Dream…” banner. The banners are currently displayed in the hallways of each of the elementary schools. In total, more than 650 elementary students were mentored on Dr. King’s vision.

At the middle school, seventh grade students attended an assembly with where they viewed a film about service learning and heard from retired teacher and NAACP member Helen Boone. Eighth grade students rotated through the gym where they participated in ten mini-service projects creating goods to be donated to local charities. Some of the projects included making door snakes to insulate homes, building birdhouses and sun catchers for the elderly, creating snack books and cinnamon raisin oatmeal mix for Snack in a Pack students, assembling toiletry bags and making scarves for Genesis Women’s Shelter, and creating bookmarks and flashcards for elementary students. When students finished their service projects, they created a greeting card to be included with the donation to cheer up the recipient. By the end of the day, students had created goods totaling over $2500 in value.

Waynesville School District’s January 2012 MLK Day of Service involved 1450 students in service and mentoring projects throughout the day. In the community, our students’ efforts benefited an estimated 500+ community members and their service time was valued at $2750 (based on the value of volunteer time from independentsector.org.) MLK Day of Service continues to grow and we are determined to make each year even better than the last. Experiences like this help to educate students in a way that is not possible with a textbook alone. “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.