{"id":19495,"date":"2023-02-01T10:16:11","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=19495"},"modified":"2023-02-01T10:16:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T18:16:40","slug":"recap-of-the-16th-annual-martin-luther-king-jr-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/recap-of-the-16th-annual-martin-luther-king-jr-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap of the 16th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Mirella Barrera-Betancourt <\/span><\/p>\n

To honor and remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Western and Student Engagement partnered with the City of Monmouth to bring a week of celebratory events to the community. This year, MLK Week marked the 16th anniversary of celebration at Western and ran from Monday, Jan. 16 through Friday, Jan. 20.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Jan. 16, amidst a three-day weekend, Western students were encouraged to appreciate and reflect on the efforts of the civil rights leader via participation in a day of service. The event was not specifically geared towards members of the Western or Monmouth communities, but for those wanting to give back to the elderly and\/or disabled Monmouth residents through community service. Participants of the service day assisted in projects ranging from yardscaping, housework and graffiti removal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Justin Sunada, Assistant Director for the Center for Professional Pathways, played a significant role in making the service event happen. According to Sunada, he had pitched the idea of a community service event at a monthly meeting for the Monmouth Business Association. Sunada, alongside City of Monmouth\u2019s Director of Community and Economic Development, Suzanne Dufner, immediately began the process of brainstorming ideas for service projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunada states, \u201cDoing more with the City (of Monmouth) and getting students off campus as much as possible has always been a goal for us so the timing was just right with this event.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Approximately 40 individuals \u2014 from students, faculty, community members and City of Monmouth employees \u2014 participated in the Day of Service, making it a successful first event to kick off MLK Week.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Jan. 17, the Black Student Union took over for the remainder of the week. Running from 5 p.m. \u2013 6:30 p.m., BSU invited students to join them in the creation of their very own dream board. The event participants explored individuality while reflecting on their own personal and\/or professional dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Western students sat for a panel discussion led by Western Professor Mike Wilson surrounding the topic of some of Dr. King\u2019s lesser known statements and aspirations. This event, titled \u201cSincerely: Reading and Discussion,\u201d was hosted by BSU and was made possible by Maya Hopwood, Deshaun Stevens, Amari Hendrix, Dawn Johnson and Western Professor Mike Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, Western and BSU had the honor of welcoming Dr. Lakeya Omogun as their 16th annual MLK Week keynote speaker. Dr. Omogun \u2014 a Nigerian artist, scholar, writer and speaker \u2014 gave a moving speech to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This event took place in the Pacific Room of the Werner University Center and was free for all students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe turn out for the Panel \u201cSincerely\u201d was way more than expected!\u201d said Hopwood. \u201cWe felt that people appreciated hearing our views on MLK\u2019s writings and I hope our main message of \u2018it\u2019s not over yet and it will take EVERYONE to lead this charge\u2019 really got across.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, Western hoped to raise a total of $2023 in fundraising, which would directly benefit Abby\u2019s House\u2019s Basic Needs Fund and Care Cupboards \u2014 a free service available for students, providing snacks, school supplies and menstrual hygiene products.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There were three ways students could raise money for Abby\u2019s House, one of which was by making a donation directly through the WOU Foundation page. Students could also raise money by participating in pay-to-play table carnival games or through participation in the \u201cPie Your Professor\u201d event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the initial goal of $2023 was unmet, Western was able to raise $1283 towards assisting and meeting students’ basic needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":19497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}