READING, Pa. \u2013 For some, Monday\u2019s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just what he said, but what he stood for: A day on; not a day off.<\/p>\n
At Emmanuel United Church of Christ in Shillington, kids and families showed up to serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are thrilled to be partnering with the UCC Emmanuel church here,\u201d said Cindy Gerber Tomlinson, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Reading\/Berks. \u201cThe concept of teaching the kids to work with people who are different than you \u2014 have a different religion, have a different race, have a different life choice \u2014 that is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 500 sandwiches made there ended up just a few miles away at New Journey Community Outreach in Reading.<\/p>\n
This church serves hundreds of people every week, but Monday was even more special \u2014 with volunteers coming together to show up for families in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartin Luther King asked what\u2019s the most important question you can ask yourself and that\u2019s, \u2018What are you doing for others?\u2019\u201d said Jeff Laylon, program director at New Journey Community Outreach. \u201cThat\u2019s something I ask myself every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
And across town, service looked different, but the message was the same.<\/p>\n
At the City of Reading greenhouse, volunteers planted Seeds of Change for community gardens and the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cMLK Day is a wonderful day to do community service in your neighborhoods,\u201d said Ann Marie DeTavernier, Berks County master gardener coordinator.<\/p>\n
At Alvernia University, students created canvas tiles featuring words that represent their communities, individual pieces of a larger mural focused on unity and belonging.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most important thing,\u201d said Athena Worley, a student at Wilson High School. \u201cThis is how I was raised. Service is such a big thing. It\u2019s what builds community. It\u2019s what helps me feel connected to others and create a better Berks County.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 For some, Monday\u2019s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just what he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,128,130,129,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-91452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-reading-city","10":"tag-reading-city-headlines","11":"tag-reading-city-news","12":"tag-reading-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91452","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=91452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}