Each year, thousands of individuals celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by giving back and serving in their communities. This year, Salem College students participated in their second annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

On Saturday, January 17, Salem students attended the sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Read-In, hosted by Winston-Salem State University. Salem students, faculty, and staff members donated children’s books for the Read-In, which invited local kindergarten through fifth-grade students to spend their morning reading and learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. Children took home two books at the end of the event to promote reading outside of the classroom. 

For the second year, Salem students coordinated and hosted a Change This World event to address hunger. At this year’s event, held on Monday, January 19, more than twenty-five volunteers packed 2,500 meals to send to children and families in developing countries. Change This World is a non-profit organization that travels to host institutions with raw ingredients, packaging materials, and an organized process to help volunteers assemble the nutritionally balanced meals.

“We plan to make Change This World an annual service event for the college and local community,” says Megan Taylor, a member of Salem’s Honor Society Coalition – the student group that arranged the event. “It’s important that Salem students discover a way to make a big impact through service.” 

This year also saw Salem students once again leading a symbolic march from the historic Salem campus, through downtown Winston-Salem, to the Benton Convention Center to attend the 35th Noon Hour Commemoration, during which Rev. Sir Walter Mack Jr. of Union Baptist Church was the keynote speaker.