Students participate in various service projects in the Wilkinson Student Center during the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Outreach event in 2018. (Josh Ellis)
Y-Serve has coordinated a Community Outreach Day for students and the Provo community to serve on the BYU campus Jan. 21 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
According to Community Outreach Day Director Emily Magleby, the event helps volunteers fulfill the Y-Serve purpose, which is to “provide every student with meaningful service opportunities … (and) to instill in the heart and mind a desire to give lifelong service.'
Community Outreach Day begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Wilkinson Center by Jamba Juice and ends at noon. Registration is free.
The event will kick off with registration and a free breakfast at 8:30 a.m, according to an event itinerary provided by Magleby. A cultural celebration will follow at 9 a.m. It will feature performances by the Unity Gospel Choir, directed by Debra Bonner, and speeches by Deborah Alexis and Angela Baxter.
Immediately after the celebration, volunteers will split into groups to work on various service projects until the event concludes at noon.
According to the Y-serve website, this year's Community Outreach Day theme aims to magnify the Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
The event features 18 different organizations and over 20 service opportunities to choose from. Organizations involved include:
- Mountainland Head Start, an organization dedicated to helping young children and families achieve a lifelong love of learning and unity. The organization focuses on helping children be prepared to attend school, according to its website. Outreach volunteers will be helping Mountainland create preschool totes for children in need.
- Service to the World, a Y-Serve program that partners with other organizations to help provide humanitarian aid around the world. Outreach volunteers will help build wooden toy cars, according to Y-serve's website.
- The Now I Can Foundation, which provides physical therapy to children with disabilities. The foundation's goal is to help children reach their full potential and achieve greater independence, according to its website. For Community Outreach Day, volunteers will clean the Now I Can clinic.
If volunteers are not interested in leaving campus but still want to support Now I Can, a second on-campus project is also available in which volunteers will make posters for the foundation.
Other organizations featuring service projects include Welcome Baby, Stop and Serve, Project Uplift and the Red Cross. Part of the goal of Community Outreach Day is to inform people about community service opportunities, according to Magleby.
Some of the featured organizations, such as Mountainland Head Start, Welcome Baby and the Now I Can Foundation are not listed on the Y-Serve website, but still provide opportunities for local service.
For more information about Community Outreach Day and other service opportunities, visit the BYU Y-Serve website at yserve.byu.edu.