See How Our Staff Celebrates MLK Day

While Adelante's staff honors MLK's greater vision through our work of creating systemic change to bring more equitable opportunities for all people, on MLK's Day of Service we seek to ask our community, "how can we be of service" and respond to the immediate needs at hand.

So on MLK Day our staff took to the streets to march, we volunteered in our community, and we reflected on Dr. King and his groundbreaking work.

Here’s a look at what we did this year!

Staff from all of our programs attended an MLK presentation at Cultural Arts Hillsboro.

Development staff members attended the Women’s March in Salem (yes…there is a llama that marches!)

Kaely, our Forest Grove Farmers Market Manager, took her little sister from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program cross-country skiing at the Trillium Lake Snow Park on Mt. Hood.

Melissa, our Corporate Engagement Officer, volunteered with Solve to clean up litter along MLK Blvd in Portland.

And Ana Titus, our Early Childhood Education Coordinator, attended the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) Summit!

While we reach out to our communities with helping hands, we must remember to also look at creating real systemic change. At Adelante Mujeres, we always keep Dr. King’s wise words on our minds:

"On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth...and say ‘This is not just.’"

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Tell us in the comments how you celebrate MLK Day!