READING, Pa. – On a day meant to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,\u2028many in Berks County didn’t take a day off, they took a day on.<\/p>\n
Across Reading, service showed up in different forms: planting, feeding, creating, all tied together by one goal: helping others.<\/p>\n
At the City of Reading greenhouse, volunteers gathered for planting Seeds of Change. Just a few miles away in Shillington, service took on another form, one meal at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got lots of sandwiches being made. We have blankets going to neighbors who may need something to keep them extra warm this winter,\u201d said Jamie Babczak, Pastor, Emmanuel United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n
Those sandwiches were then delivered to New Journey Community Outreach in Reading, a place that serves hundreds of people every single week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our dining hall,\u201d said Jeff Laylon, the program director at New Journey. \u201cOn any given day, we serve between 300 and 400 people, whether it\u2019s a hot meal, food from our pantry, or clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laylon says days like this are a reminder of why service matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartin Luther King asked, \u2018What are you doing for others?\u2019\u201d Laylon said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I ask myself every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
For community leaders, the work goes beyond food. It’s about connection across age, faith, and background.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a privilege to be able to serve this community,\u201d Laylon added. \u201cMany of the people who come here have been pushed to the edges of society. We want this to be a place where everyone is welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – On a day meant to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,\u2028many in Berks County didn’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,44122,41219,28,736,128,130,129,15881],"class_list":{"0":"post-91204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-martin-luther-king-jr-day","10":"tag-mlk","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-reading","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news","16":"tag-volunteering"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}