By Lauren Fitz

On Jan. 18, students at Bowling Green State University participated in the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Throughout the day, volunteers were reminded that the day was a day on, not a day off, something that Martin Luther King Jr.’s family has said they want the day to be remembered as.

There were 715 volunteers and 1,909 hours served, which was lower than last year due to less hours served.

Maggie Nowicki, assistant director of co-curricular programs in the Office of Service Learning, said the way the day of service was organized differently this year than it had in years past. One part that was different this year was a longer opening ceremony so students would be able to put the day in context and learn about Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.

“This year, we’re trying to focus more on how we can kind of link MLK’s legacy to the community service that students were doing. We had fewer volunteers this year but we were really trying to make the students make that connection, which I think we did well in our opening ceremony, which was a little bit longer but it gave students a little bit more context about MLK’s life and how that was going to play out in their service projects later in the day,” Nowicki said.

During the opening ceremony, different student groups did performances and spoken word poems that the audience really responded to, including performances by the Voices of BG choir and poems recited by Maurice Smith, Kayleen Powell and Devin Smith. The Rev. Darvin A. Adams gave the keynote speech entitled “Seeing the Legacy of Dr. King with Eyes of Hope: Embracing the Commitment to Unity, Service and Community.”

Nowicki said the students felt impacted by the performances in the opening ceremonies and the keynote speech made it easier for students to focus on what they were doing for the day in terms of why the MLK Day of Service is important.

Also something different that was planned was that the Office of Service Learning paired volunteer groups with sites that can relate back to values of the groups.

“We also focused on creating those academic partnerships … really linking what students are learning in the classroom to their service project,” Nowicki said.

Nowicki thought the event went well and said that “there weren’t too many hiccups and that’s always a good thing.”

And while the cold weather may have kept some of the volunteers away from the day of service, Nowicki said it’s something they expect every year.

“We do what we can to make sure that we know who’s going to be there and who’s not going to be there. You can never really prevent that,” Nowicki said.

For the MLK Day of Service 2016, volunteers went out to 39 sites to complete their service.

The Office of Service Learning starts the planning process in October by reaching out to the community partners to see if they need any help or if they would like to host an event.