Martin Luther King Day marked the start of our service projects for the second half of the 2012-13 school year. In this half of the year, we turned the organization of the projects over to our AmeriCorps members.
A team of four AmeriCorps coaches worked hard and prepped for months to bring together more than 150 volunteers on MLK Day in a project to brighten up one of our Playworks schools in Inglewood, Bennett-Kew Elementary, with murals, flowers, and play.
The TreePeople and the Social Justice Learning Institute led the group in a moment of silence for Sandy Hook, and students planted 26 fruit trees as a living memorial to the victims. Murals painted around the campus depict popular scenes from children’s books and highlight the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Parents and students came together to plant flowers in the school’s planters, and our volunteers completely revamped the blacktop and hand ball areas with colorful graphics.
Click here to check out a time-lapse video of our largest mural from the project, and here for an album of photos from the event.
A huge thank you to our in-kind sponsors:
- TreePeople
- Social Justice Learning Institute
- Sherwin-Williams Paint Store
- Home Depot
- Target
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Noah’s New York Bagels
- Einstiein Bros. Bagels
- Starbucks
- Chile Verde
- Shakey’s Pizza
