Volunteers in Miami gather to honor Martin Luther King with day of service

MIAMI– Liberty City transformed Saturday afternoon after community members joined together to give back and clean up during the weekend to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dozens of volunteers gathered to perform community service projects during a chilly, blustery weekend day as part of the national effort to give back and work in their own neighborhoods in honor of the slain civil rights leader.

The participants painted benches along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard that had been covered in graffiti; picked up litter and debris; and also worked to beautify a local butterfly garden.

The Greater Miami Service Corps organized the event in Liberty City to beautify the area.

“Dr. King has set an example and the bar so high for us in that we owe it to him to continue to reach for his dream,” said Christine King, chairwoman of the City of Miami Commission. “We’ve come a long way, but we still have work to be done.”

One of the projects worked on during the weekend outing was planting and mulching the area in front of the marquee in Dr. King’s name that is located near Interstate 95. 

“We’ve got a lot of us people that don’t know how to speak up for the right thing and some of us are actually afraid,” said Terrell Dennison, one of the volunteers. “But him? He wasn’t. He was able to do what most of us couldn’t, and so it actually is an honor to come out here with Greater Miami Service Corps, allowing us to do stuff that we weren’t able to do a long time ago so we can do it today it feels great.”