While many UW students spent Equality Day relaxing or snowboarding or catching up on homework, over 100 UW students volunteered their day off from classes to participate in the Day of Service event. By volunteering a few hours of their time before the Equality Day march, organizers and participants were excited to make a contribution to their community.
“It shows a lot of initiative from the students who are here,” said Molly Markow, a UW junior and SLCE. “That says a lot about the students who are here and that’s exciting to see.”
The day’s activities kicked off the university’s week-long series as a part of MLK Days of Dialogue. Coordinated by Service, Leadership, and Community Engagement (SLCE), turned the day off into a day on. Volunteers walked or rode a shuttle from the Union to the Laramie Plains Civic Center, located on Garfield and 7th street, where they participated in a number of projects.
“There’s no shortage of projects that can be done,” Melissa Daniele, the Executive Director of the LPCC, said.
Volunteers participated in direct and indirect projects throughout the 160,000 square foot building. The South Gym and Gryphon Theater were cleaned top to bottom and the stage and orchestra pit were painted in the theater. Offices stacked with paper work also received much needed organization help in what coordinators called “spring cleaning projects.”
The indirect services comprised of efforts designed to help various groups. Alternative Spring Breakers headed projects such as folding small flags for soldiers overseas to carry during their service, putting together coloring books for children in Trinidad, writing positive notes in children’s books headed to Costa Rica, making bead bracelets with supplies provided by Beads for Life to raise money for breast cancer and writing messages on cardboard coffee cup insulators at Turtle Rock Café.
Markow, an SLCE member responsible for helping organizing the event along with staff from the Civic Center and Alternative Spring Break team leaders, said issues of equality and community service are inseparable.
“Issues dealing with equality is about coming to the realization that it’s not just about you,” said Markow, who is an art major from Loveland, CO. “There is a greater community beyond yourself and your university.”
Daniele, who has been the director of the LPCC since May, echoed Markow’s sentiment of community.
“I think it’s a good opportunity for people to look outside themselves and their own familial cultural situation,” she said. “It’s one of those rare days wehre we get remind of our history as a country and our family history and really engage in something outside of ourselves and help others.”
The LPCC, Daniele pointed out, has daily reminders of the importance of community engagement. The building is home to Interfaith Good Samaritan, The United Way, Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse, the Wyoming Women’s Business Center and Head Start. She said the atmosphere of underprivileged minorities and women’s issues was a reason she loved to work there. She also hoped students would be inclined to return to find more ways to give back to the community.
“We all need those reminders of how good we’ve got it and how we need to put ourselves out thee for those who don’t have it,” Daniele said.
While she said she is always glad to have help taking care of the Civic Center, which only has one full-time maintenance employee, Daniele said what made her happiest was not what was being done to the building, but the generous spirit of giving happening inside the building.
“I just can’t stop grinning today,” she said. “I love my job and I love being here.”
Representatives from SLCE hope to see students attending MLK Days of Dialogue events throughout the week, which include tomorrow’s events Sharing Forward: Telling the Untold Stories of Wyoming’s People and a jazz performance by Galen Abdur-Razzaq. Macki Snyder, Program Coordinator for ASUW, said the events were built around the week’s theme of “Dream Forward.” She hopes the events help to break down misunderstandings and barriers to help increase access and equity for all people.
“It’s the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and we wanted to evaluate where we’ve come from and how much further we have to go to move Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream forward,” Snyder said.
