News

Boston Latin School promotes day of service on MLK Day

BOSTON — On a national holiday dedicated to honoring the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., today went beyond giving back for students at Boston Latin School.

In an effort to work towards a more inclusive future, 650 people participated in a national day of service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy.

Participants of today's Boston Cares event worked hard on building beds for the department of children and families and creating ESOL education tools for more than 2,000 adult English language learners and their families.

"My students, they work at the airport, as drivers in all kinds of different ways, so this is a way for us to say thank you to them for the service that they do," said Douglas Tyler.

Douglas Tyler is an ESOL program coordinator at the Boston Latin School and joined his students in making Jenga blocks to practice English.

"He feels really great to be here with all these new people that he's meeting, he realizes how important it is to learn English and he appreciates the support," Douglas translated for one of his students, Alex.

For some, today's day of service was about coming back to their neighborhood and giving back.

"We've always been a city of immigrants, we're always gonna be a city of immigrants. It's a really pressing and important need facing us at this moment in our city, in our nation's history so why not?" said Patrice Keegan, the executive director for Boston Cares.

Kerome Coley is from Dorchester and went to an exam school. He says being a kid from the inner city himself, he understands the struggles the kids who will sleep in these beds will face.

"We're able to bring a team of different ethnicities with people of different beliefs, and if you look around the room you're gonna see people who are ready and want to give back," said Coley. "These kids work hard, like I know what it's like to be in these schools, I know what it's like to have to work hard everyday and they deserve it."

"(We're) asking people to give back every day, not just today - everyday of the year is important. Particularly what's going on around the world, all the noise around America, all the racist comments coming out of the White House and national politics. Come to Boston, see what's happening here," said Mayor Walsh.