Aurora students to lend a hand on Day of Service

On Monday, students from Aurora area high schools and Waubonsee Community College will spend the day helping out at Aurora’s Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry.

These students will join others who will fan out across 11 other locations in Aurora to volunteer at local nonprofits as part of Aurora’s Martin Luther King Day of Service, part of the national volunteer service initiative United We Serve.

Some students will clean books and organize toys at the Aurora Public Libraries, and others will lead games and activities for residents of local nursing homes.

Students can sign up for more than 250 slots at www.aurora-il.org/mlk which are available at Aurora Public Library, Crossroads Church, Elmwood Nursing Home, Hesed House, Jennings Terrace, Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry, SciTech Hands on Museum, Sunnymere Senior House, and Symphony at Orchard Valley.

Volunteering at the food pantry, as part of Day of Service is especially significant, because in addition to being a personal friend of Martin Luther King, Marie Wilkinson played a major role in the civil rights movement in Aurora, Clayton Muhammad, the director of Communications with the City of Aurora said.

“Every year, on Martin Luther King Day, we have students who come to the pantry to do a day of community service,” Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry Director Diane Renner said.

The day of service is a great opportunity for the students to get to know who Marie Wilkinson was and what she did for the Aurora community, she said.

This year, Renner said some students will clean appliances – something that happens every Monday at the food pantry – and others will empty the shelves, clean them, and restock them with food.

Other students will participate in the pantry’s food rescues.

“Each Monday, we visit seven local stores and pick up items that are past their sell-by date,” she said. “We bring them back to the pantry and sort them.”

Nothing goes to waste, Renner said.

“Anything we don’t save for our guests is picked up by a farmer which is composted or used to feed livestock,” she said.

Students also will sort items from food drives that were held over the holidays, she said.

All student volunteers will be recognized that evening as part of the annual MLK Celebration that will be held at 6 p.m. at Metea Valley High School in Aurora. The event is in collaboration with the City of Aurora and Aurora’s African-American Heritage Board and will include performances from students from Aurora schools and a presentation of the Service Above Self Awards.

In addition to the recognition of student volunteers, local school groups will highlight milestones in King’s life such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, his visit to India, his time in a Birmingham jail, the March on Selma, and his Poor People’s Campaign. The portrayals will be accompanied by video clips and songs performed by local singers.

“The Martin Luther King celebration in Aurora has been happening for more than 30 years,” Muhammad said.

Six years ago, local community groups pulled together to incorporate the Day of Serving component to include an opportunity for all Aurora students to serve as part of the Martin Luther King celebration, he added.

While today some school districts around the country choose to have classes in session, Aurora schools have the day off.

In keeping with the message, it is a day on and not a day off, Muhammad said.

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“We want the day to be a day of service for students,” he said.

Cathy Janek is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News