In honor of Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Day, USI volunteers helped students at Glenwood Elementary make blankets for a local child care center, cards for local veterans and emergency kits for local families.

The students not only did arts and crafts projects in the middle of school but also learned about what MLK Jr. Day was about and the importance of volunteering and helping others.

Marcey Head-Vanpell, program director and AmeriCorps coordinator for USI, said she believes in the ideals of helping your community and teaching kids that volunteering is both important and fun.

“It’s great to work with Glenwood and talk about Martin Luther King Jr., what he wanted and his push for service,” Vanpell said. “I want to give them a taste of how they can serve their community, even now when they are kids.”

The project was run by Americorps, a national service organization which came to USI only a year ago. It already has a number of student volunteers and projects underway. This project was funded with a $1,750 grant from the Office of Faith Based Community Initiative, a state office.

Lindsay Ours, senior social work major, was one of the people who planned out the MLK Jr. event.

“We want to pass on the drive to volunteer,” Ours said. “We all love volunteering, and we want to inspire them to continue volunteering in the future, as they get older.”

She said she was pleased to see how enthusiastic the kids were, even the younger ones.

“The kids have been really receptive to service and have been having a lot of fun getting to be creative,” Ours said. “All of them like serving. One thing the program stressed was the purpose of MLK Jr. Day itself. People sometimes forget that it’s not just a day you get off of work or school. It’s a day of service, to give back to others. MLK was a great believer in service and giving back, and all the USI AmeriCorps volunteers hope that they can pass that massage along.”