Honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
By Joao Hachich, an Academic Year Program exchange student and a Greenheart Club member. Joao is 17 years old, from Brazil, and is spending his year abroad in Wisconsin!
On Monday, January 21st, a group of five exchange students in the Greater Milwaukee area celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Day in a special way. The project was run by local coordinator Annie Reifsnyder who organized the project with the help of Nativity Middle School, Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, and Community Health Corps. The students thought that this was an amazing idea of helping the community by marking this holiday as a day “on” not a day “off.”
My favorite part was seeing everyone working together to make the mural. Maruf from Tajikistan said that his favorite activity was doing the project with the other exchange students. Yumna from Morocco, who loves painting, most enjoyed the efficient team work that took place to finish the mural. Injien from Nigeria loved the experience because she leaned a new way of improving who she was and who she used to be. She liked meeting the Americorps volunteers and thinks this will be a day to always remember. Aygerim from Kazakhstan spent the day with friendly people and appreciated the opportunity to be a part of such an amazing event.
“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.