City Year volunteers celebrate MLK day by painting doors at May Dugan
by Frank Barnett

(Plain Press, February 2010) May Dugan Center in Ohio City was in need of some interior painting, and City Year Cleveland needed to make Martin Luther King Day, January 18, a day of service rather than a day off. They ran 6 projects throughout Cleveland that day.

“Martin Luther King had a quote, “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve,“ said City Year Senior Program Manager Lisa Fellows. “At City Year, we empower 17-24 year olds to serve, to tutor and mentor in the schools, and give back to the communities they grew up in or moved into. For me personally today is more about being a day on than a day off. To see people who don’t have to go to work today sacrificing their time and energy for others, it’s a real encouragement to me. Today’s an opportunity when schools are closed, when libraries and so many places are closed, we can go in when we don’t have the public interrupting walking in and out. It’s an opportunity during that time out to put time in.”

Several youth and adults from Shaker Heights High School joined the West Side City Year members, who are always visible in their bright red jackets. What May Dugan Center needed was to finish the painting that had been ongoing throughout this past year, which was their 40th anniversary. Mostly doors and doorframes were still in need of paint, but the spirit of service seemed to keep everybody smiling.

Those smiles were important because true charity work calls for sincerity. It is not just a token good deed to look good, but to really transcend the ego.

Lisa Fellows agreed. “It’s not all about ego, that’s what I keep telling my team. You can plan a service project and have an idea what it means, but it needs to be the people in the community. It needs to be the host site, like May Dugan, telling us this is what we need you to do. We don’t say we’re going to do this or that. We serve their needs rather than us going in there and saying they need this.”

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