January 20, WASHINGTON—The United States commemorates Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. on the third Monday of every January. Over 100 volunteers, mostly students, made this day off a “day on” by serving and giving back to their community in Lynnwood, Washington.

GPF representative Yoshi Goto addresses over a hundred volunteers during the 2020 MLK Day of Service

“’Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve,’” Yoshi Goto, a volunteer project coordinator for Global Peace Foundation (GPF), shared MLK’s words to welcome the families and students gathered for the event. “All of you can be great people today, simply because you serve and that’s what service is all about.”

Volunteers also create posters for a local elementary school

The project, sponsored by GPF and the City of Lynnwood, involved the clearing of invasive plants from a local public trail, planting trees and other native species along the trail, and cleaning the buses used to transport senior citizens nearby. Goto pointed out the diversity of the volunteers as a celebration of MLK’s legacy saying, “If you look around, you can see there are a lot of people of all different ages, of all different backgrounds and all different nationalities. But we are all here for the same thing, which is helping out the city.”

Read more on Lynnwood Today: Record volunteer turnout for Lynnwood’s MLK Day of Service

And Lynnwood Times: Individuals work together to serve their community on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day