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More than 100 Finlandia students used a day off of school to make a difference in their community as they spent the day performing various volunteer duties throughout the Copper Country.
Now in its fourth year, the University refers to “Martin Luther King, Jr. Day- a day of service” as one of its newest and most rewarding traditions.
“The school gives us MLK, Jr. day off. Every year we come out here and split wood for Little Brothers and they take the wood and distribute it to elderly people who heat their homes,” said Connor Hannon.
The university began observing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day four years ago after several African American students asked the faculty to consider doing so. These days, the holiday is not only celebrated on campus, but the students are taking King’s message of civility to a whole new level by participating at more than a dozen local volunteer sites.
“We wanted to give back to our community, and have a little fun while doing it,” said Katie Loman.
“So we usually go around to different places in the area. I went to the Houghton Elementary School so I helped out with the Girl Scouts and their meeting. We talked about MLK and civil rights, what it would be like to be a kid during the civil rights era,” said Annie Jo Wills.
Annie Jo is a history student who spent the day informing Houghton Elementary students of the cultural differences in our not so distant past.
“African Americans were not treated right. They weren’t allowed to be in the same communities, go to the same restaurants, drink in the same water fountains. They had to sit in the back of the buses. They were treated very poorly,” said Eleanor, a 2nd grader at Houghton Elementary who was intrigued to learn of a resource used at the time. “The Green Book is a book that black people used to find gas stations to get gas for the car when they traveled, hotels, and restaurants where they could eat and people would be nice to them,” she said.
Is it safe to say we’ve made progress since then? “I feel like we’ve come really far, but I feel like we still have further to go. So I would like to see less tense relationships between the African American community and police officers,” said Wills.
For the Hockey Team, it’s axes, chainsaws, and lots of teamwork. “We’ve got over 20 guys out here splitting wood. It’s great to get out in the community and be able to help out,” said Alex Rezansoff
“A lot of volunteer hours go into putting all this together, splitting it, stacking it, and distributing it to homes. They’re (Little Brothers) looking for volunteers all the time if you want to come out and help split wood or anything like that,” said Hannon.
The university continues to recognize MLK day and will be showing a movie entitled “When We Were Kings” later in the week. That showing will take place at 6:00pm Thursday on campus.
