Local nonprofit The Walls Project is honoring Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend through service, education and revitalization; and it is inviting the Baton Rouge community to join in.
MLK Fest, held this Friday and Saturday, Jan. 17–18, and Monday, Jan. 20, is chock-full of events centered around revitalization of the Eden Park and Bogan Walk neighborhoods, featuring mural painting, community gardens refreshing and litter clean up. It’ll culminate in a block party with live music, a kids zone and resource fair on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“I think it’s an opportunity for us to come together to revitalize and reactivate the neighborhood in Baton Rouge,” Ashlyn Rae Harrison, senior programs director at The Walls Project, says. “I think it’s an opportunity for us to realize that we can be involved and ingrained in our community day-to-day, not just once a year.”
|
|
|
The program starts Friday, Jan. 17, at the Carver Branch and Eden Park Branch libraries.
The Walls Project has partnered with MetroMorphosis as a part of the OneRouge social movement to host an educational summit at the Carver Branch Library from 8 a.m.–noon focused on poverty and its driving factors.
“If someone’s interested in learning more and also how to change the system, that’s a really impactful event that you can go to,” Helena Sato, director of operations and communications for The Walls Project, says.
From 10 a.m.–1 p.m. on Jan. 17, MLK Fest will also feature an educational summit at the Eden Park Branch Library geared toward digital literacy. Partnered with Cox Communications, the James M. Cox Foundation and PCs for People, the summit will give away laptops to members of the community and teach them how to use their new tech.
“They’ll learn how to use their laptops and make sure that they are technologically savvy so when they go home with their laptops, they’re confident and ready to take on their new system,” Sato says.
While Friday is focused on education, Saturday and Monday are focused on service and revitalization. The organization, along with volunteers, will be working throughout the Eden Park and Bogan Walk neighborhoods from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Sato says there are many plans for the day, including painting and updating residential homes, refreshing community gardens and lots of blight, as well as litter clean up.
“We pick areas that are in the highest need of light remediation and also have like high numbers of poverty, because we want to make sure to help reinvest and reactivate areas in our neighborhoods,” Sato says.
The service event will continue on Monday, Jan. 20, until 11 a.m., when volunteers are encouraged to make their way to the corner of Fuqua and 28th streets for the MLK Fest Block Party and Resource Fair. The block party will feature a battle of the bands, DJs, public speakers and a kids zone, as well as a paint giveaway for attendees to take to continue revitalization efforts in their own neighborhoods.
The resource fair will feature various organizations for community members to browse, including education and health care programs.
“It’s a great place for people in the community to have a kind of a one-stop shop of visiting all these different organizations,” Sato says.
Although the MLK Fest is only a few days long, The Walls Project hopes that the events encourage volunteers to continue with efforts to better their own communities, Harrison says.
“I think MLK Fest is the beginning of the year and it starts off our year in the right way,” Harrison says. “We’re in our communities, and we’re supporting our communities to make sure that they have the resources and the push from community organizations that’s needed.”
|
|
|
Anyone is welcome to volunteer, and organizers encourage residents from all over the parish to show up and help with the community revitalization efforts. The group’s only request is that volunteers do their best to sign up beforehand, and that parents with children sign up for the kid-friendly activities and avoid the blight and litter tasks.
The events are sponsored by Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation, the City of Baton Rouge, ExxonMobil, the Huey and Angelina Wilson Foundation and others.
Find more information on service activities and locations here. Volunteers can sign up for service tasks here.