February 19, 2019
By Kenneth Mobley
Community Outreach Specialist, Public Allies AmeriCorps Member

“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Monday, January 21^st, 2019, Catalyst Miami’s Public Allies Miami (PAM) cohort joined hundreds of  volunteers from various organizations, communities, and students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools to honor The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy with a day of service.

This years’ MLK Service Day project was hosted by City Year Miami, a non-profit that focuses on educational equity. City Year Miami decided to host a school beautification project for Madison Middle School, located in the West Little River community. Here, we came together to enhance a place our youth call home for six or more hours of their day.

The 2018-2019 PAM Cohort engaged in helping to morph Madison middle school into a more engaging, visually appealing place for current and future students to learn, grow and play. Beautification projects encourage students to be more involved in their school day, while also teaching students to be more respectful of the environment and to be a part of what keeps their environment clean.

As the community recognizes how well attended their nearby school is, and how much more engaged their children are with learning and being in school, we hope that a fresh sense of pride will consume the community as a whole. We were tasked with filling in the geo-shapes outlining the walls near the entrance of the school. We also helped the host organization add more geo-shape outlining to the front of the school, that we later painted.

It was amazing adding our hands to this uplifting effort and having the chance to work with people of different backgrounds on one common goal. There is nothing more fulfilling than service to a cause larger than yourself!