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Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service with the Calvert Community 2020

On Monday, January 20th, Calvert celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by hosting our 11th annual Martin Luther King (MLK) Day of Service.
We had 303 community members registered to participate in a variety of service activities in honor of Dr. King's vision and legacy. We offered onsite and offsite activities where students and parents worked on service projects to better our community.

Onsite activities included:
  • Baltimore Hunger Project
  • Hampden Family Center
  • Keswick Adult Center 
  • Letters to military troops
  • Liberia/Chilamate Schools
  • Marian House 
  • Memory Project
  • Our Daily Bread
  • Painting kindness rocks
  • Sarah’s Hope
  • SPCA-pet toys
  • Village Learning Center
 Offsite activities included: 
  • Clifton Park Community Garden
  • Clifton Mansion-assembling school supplies for Lillie May Carroll Jackson School
  • Paul’s Place
Participants kicked-off the day by gathering in the Middle School assembly hall to address the meaning of MLK Day. Throughout his life, Dr. King focused on the role of love as an essential part of building strong communities. He emphasized that the ways in which we love are at the center of our social interactions. 

To gain a better understanding for the different types of love, Mr. Gregory Chin, Calvert’s Sixth Grade Latin Fellow, explored the three types of love defined by the ancient Greeks. Eros is a form of love associated with desire. Philia is the love experienced between close friends and family. However, these forms of love are very different from agape, the third type of love.

Agape
 is defined as disinterested love; a love in which an individual seeks not his/her own good, but the good of his/her neighbor. Agape does not discriminate between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess, but loves others simply because of their humanity. Agape is a word that continued to be an essential topic at our all-school assembly and our day of service. Leon Pinkett ’20, who was a speaker at both, concluded his speech with what agape meant to him: “This is a limitless love, a love without boundaries.”  For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the concept of agape stood at the center of both his spiritual beliefs and his conviction that love and nonviolence were essential to remedying America’s race relation issues. 

The day continued with Calvert students, parents, friends, relatives, and alumni all engaged in helping each other make a difference locally and globally. For the sixth consecutive year, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) baseball team assisted leaders and participants throughout the day. Calvert School alumni returned and volunteered their services by setting up and running the bake sale, (proceeds will go to the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute in New Mexico).

MLK Day of Service is a time for all of us to come together and make a meaningful impact on the world. Sandry Sachar emphasized why this day is important to Calvert by saying, “It takes us out of our four walls and into our community.” It truly was a community event filled with agape, partnership, and service. As Mr. Chin poignantly noted, “It is not just a day, it is an experience.”

A special thank you to everyone who made this day possible: All participants, students, alumni, parents, family, friends, Calvert employees, kitchen, technology, maintenance crew, and JHU students.

MLK All-School Assembly Organizers and Speakers:
Alexis Tantau
Jay Parker
Leon Pinkett ’20 
Sandry Sachar
Sarah Crowley
Timika Tyson

MLK Day of Service Organizers and Speakers:
Greg Chin
Head Master Andrew Holmgren
Leon Pinkett ‘20
Lori Wlodarczyk
Sandry Sachar 

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
 
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Calvert School is a coed independent lower and middle school.

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