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2019 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

An opportunity to empower individuals, strengthen communities

January 1, 2019 | 2 min reading time

This article is 5 years old. It was published on January 1, 2019.

The annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service will be observed on Monday, January 21, 2019. Legislation signed in 1983 marked the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a federal holiday. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service and charged the Corporation for National and Community Service with leading this effort.

Per the Corporation for National and Community Service website, each year, on the third Monday in January, the MLK Day of Service is observed as a "day on, not a day off." MLK Day of Service is intended to empower individuals, strengthen communities, bridge barriers, create solutions to social problems, and move us closer to Dr. King's vision of a "Beloved Community."

There are many ways to participate in this annual Day of Service. Join a project already planned in your neighborhood or develop your own project with family, friends and neighbors. If you work for an organization that mobilizes volunteers, you can make the MLK Day of Service the day you train new volunteers to be deployed throughout the year.

For more information, visit the nationalservice.gov website.

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