(light music) - We're here to talk about the upcoming holiday, the MLK Day celebration.

So just tell us what the event is, where it's happening, when it's happening.

- So the history of the event really hits home for me.

I worked in the Berkeley School District in 2017 when the very first event happened here in Royal Oak.

I was assigned by my superintendent in Berkeley to represent the district at this endeavor with Shawn Lewis-Lakin, the then superintendent here in Royal Oak.

And now since 2017, the event has really grown and we now include the Clawson School District as well as our municipalities in the cities that we represent as school districts.

Each year, it features community service projects that we assemble onsite.

We collect donations for several weeks before the event in our school districts and around our cities, and then our volunteers help us to sort those hundreds and hundreds of items.

Because while we get the donations in, some of our charities only want very specific items, so more hands help out.

And so we do have our volunteers work on that.

Over the years, we've had guest speakers, we have student productions, both musically and in video.

We also have a march within our communities, which is a newer feature to our event.

And we've very proudly rotated the event between the Berkeley School District and Royal Oak Schools over the years.

And we anticipate that it'll be hosted in Clawson next year.

So we really wanted it to be a regional impact.

We all service community organizations within our own cities, but we also know that in the Metro Detroit area, it's very rich for service agencies that support the families in need in our community.

And so we wanted a broader footprint.

So the initial collaborative between the school districts allowed us to have more parents, more staff, and more students involved.

We had PTA organizations, our foundations contribute, our teacher unions contribute.

And our phrase of it's A Day On, Not A Day Off, really talks about, yes, it's a day off from school, but it really means a lot to us to honor his legacy, honor Dr. King's legacy, and to also understand what impact we can have in the community.

Another key goal for the event is that it isn't just about one day, it's not one day a year, it's really how we live our lives and how we serve our communities all year long.

- How important is it to get young people involved in these types of service events and just being able to serve a community in general?

- We really want the ideals of the day and the holiday to mean more to them than one article they read once a year every January.

And so we believe that by talking about it and showing them what they have to offer for their community, how it fits in our curriculum, how we learn from our history and from our past, and how we influence the future adults that will be leading our world someday that are in our schools, it really means a lot to us to have the students involved.

- What's the part of this event and these days even leading up to it or after it that really sticks with you?

- I think seeing the impact of our service to these community organizations, really bringing everyone together, sorting those donations, and then literally tons of food, tons of blankets, all kinds of toiletry supplies, we're making lunches this year for a food pantry to be able to distribute.

All of those things I think just really help us understand how we can be helpful and how fortunate we really are in our schools and in our individual communities, and how we can be helpful to others.

And so when we make those deliveries and it isn't very public, we go to the back door, we go to the loading dock and we drop off, but just driving away knowing that our community's made such a difference, and it also does inspire us to do it in June or do it in September and not just January.

- How important is it for people to realize that they can do this all year round?

That there's always an opportunity to serve their community?

- Yeah, so it's very important.

One year in planning the event, we actually were not able to go to some of the community organizations because they were full.

They said, "We really don't have a need right now, but we have a need at the other times of the school year, so if you could send your groups then."

One year we were able to help a community organization in September by going into the neighborhoods and doing cleanup efforts.

That was tied to our MLK event, although it took place in August and September that year, so that we were able to help them when they needed us, not when the holiday took place.

- How many people are you expecting to come out and, you know, participate this year?

- So there have been years when we've had keynote speakers and then of course COVID hit and we had to do an alternate event that year.

But we still were able to help community organizations the best we could during that time.

The attendance has varied, but I believe in years we've had over 200 folks come out, staff, students, families, and even people from the community that aren't specifically involved with the district, but they see the event, and it's something that meets their need and they do come out and help us.

That's why we say everyone is welcome, walk-ins are welcome, but hundreds of people collecting on the same day for the same purpose is very inspiring.

- How can people get involved with this year's events, next year's event, and things going on in between those things throughout the entire year?

- So, many of the organizations that are going to receive donations that we're collecting are listed on the website.

That website is hosted by the city of Royal Oak, it's romi.gov/mlk.

Folks can go there to make a monetary donation, to see the details for the day of the event that we have on January 20th, and then they can also make donations directly to the organizations.

We also take walk-ins, you don't have to sign up, there's no RSVP.

A light breakfast will be served on the day of the event.

It's really about the fellowship of getting people together collectively that day, deliver many blankets out to organizations after the fact, so we need volunteers to drive some of those donations around town.

So it really is a nice community event on the day, but because the website stays up all year long, folks can log in anytime and help those organizations.