Brigitte Ortiz | THE RIDER
MLK Day of Service is a national holiday that has been observed by Americans as a day to come together and serve the community. This year, the Leadership and Mentoring office will find alternative ways for students to volunteer due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vanessa Sandoval, program coordinator for Leadership and Social Change said this event has been observed by UTRGV since it was established.
“The slogan is, ‘make it a day on, not a day off,’” Sandoval said. “And so, they gather and they serve the community. … Different opportunities that are available for them to give back to the community and to continue the dream that Martin Luther King [Jr.] had once. So one of the quotes that has been like, ‘why do you serve on that day?’ is he said, ‘everybody can be great because everyone can serve,’ and so we really take that, and we have been celebrating that as UTRGV and as previous legacy institutions [The University of Texas at Brownsville and the University of Texas-Pan American.]”
She said the Leadership and Mentoring office partners with different agencies to find opportunities for students to volunteer.
“Every year we’re so excited, and I love having set like a goal [of] like 500 or 300 [students] or keep growing,” Sandoval said. “And unfortunately because, and it’s understandable, some of the sites are like, ‘I can’t have more people because there’s not enough space in there to, like, have everybody social distance.’ And so we’re hoping, looking for opportunities that might be available, like, online that students may want to be able to serve and still be a part of that day.”
Cielo Cruz, a mass communication senior, volunteered for the first time on MLK Day of Service last year at the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley in Pharr.
“The experience I had was a pleasant one, a memorable one, that is,” Cruz said. “I got to go with my sorority, and we were given the options to either help inside, which was I think they were stocking cans into boxes, or we could go to the garden and do some garden work. I decided to go to the garden and first, they had us feed the chickens they had. We fed some turkeys, and we moved on and we went and did some weeding, taking out some roots out of the plants, raking, planting flowers.”
She said they worked from 8 to 11 a.m. and after they were given a tour and were told the history of the food bank, what they do and how they help the community besides providing meals.
“It was a pleasant experience because I got to work alongside, not just my sorority sisters, but other people who were there as well from other organizations, and get to talk to them and network as well,” Cruz said. “It just opens your eyes to help out more, and now that we can’t do any work, it’s something that you miss, and you wish you could still go and do the same thing that we did last year.”
She said she is looking forward to volunteering and helping others whether that be virtually or in person while following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines.
