On January 15th, 2024, AmeriCorps members across the nation participated in the MLK National Day of Service to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Our 40 members serving with Campus Compact’s VISTA Project participated in service projects to give back to their communities and make a difference in the lives of those in need.
In the Midwest, VISTA Members Grace Knudsen, Jacob Lau, and Allyson Schmude served at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s campus food pantry, where they sorted canned goods, took inventory, and stocked the shelves. The Green Bay Food Pantry is a non-profit student organization that provides perishable and non-perishable foods, clothing, cleaning, and personal/hygiene supplies to all students, faculty, and university staff to ensure adequate basic needs are met.
On the West Coast, VISTA Member Deyah El-Azhari attended a tree-planting event hosted by Canopy, a non-profit organization located in Palo Alto, California, that works to grow urban tree canopies in mid-peninsula communities. During the event, the mayor of East Palo Alto did a ceremonial tree planting before volunteers were placed into groups where they worked with an arborist to plant trees properly.
On the East Coast, VISTA Leaders Amanda Harlfinger and Nicole Ochoa volunteered at the Greater Boston Food Bank, New England's largest hunger relief organization. Each year, the Greater Boston Food Bank supplies over 109 million pounds of healthy food to more than 600 distribution sites across Eastern Massachusetts. At the end of their service, Harlfinger and Ochoa, along with other volunteers, helped pack 2,711 family meal boxes, which equaled about 14,000 meals.