Volunteers warm a cold MLK Day

Posted by Rich Schwartzman on January 18, 2016

Single-digit wind chills might have frozen out one event scheduled for Martin Luther King Day, but students and volunteers from several school districts, including Unionville-Chadds Ford, did their parts in warming spirits and bodies.

Peanut butter and jelly is always a fun lunch choice.

U-CF, Kennett and Avon Grove overlapped on a number of different community service projects during the Jan. 18 remembrance of King. They provided food for the Kennett Food Cupboard, volunteered to help out with the “Winter Wonderland Senior Prom” at Twin Pines Health Care Center and did some painting at Family Promise in West Grove.

Subfreezing temperatures prevented Unionville and Kennett high and middle school students and adult volunteers from cleaning up Anson B. Nixon Park, one of the regular activities during the last eight years of the MLK observance.

Local elementary schools continued what have become their own traditions. Volunteers at Chadds Ford Elementary School donated and filled 111 backpacks for students at the Chester County Family Academy in West Chester.

CFES Principal Shawn Dutkiewicz said there were 81 volunteers who sorted the packs and filled them with personal items, including books, pajamas and dental hygiene products.

Backpacks, 111, of them, collected at Chadds Ford ElementarySchool and filled with pajamas, tooth brushes and books go to the Chester County Family Academy. — Backpacks, 111 of them, collected at Chadds Ford ElementarySchool and filled with pajamas, tooth brushes and books go to the Chester County Family Academy.

Hillendale volunteers made, packed and delivered 300 bagged lunches and 100 quarts of soup for needy families in Southern Chester County. They also collected non-perishable food items for the MLK Food Drive and backpacks for "Backpacks for MLK's Dream" Project, benefitting La Comunidad Hispaña.

Unionville-Chadds Ford schools have been taking part in MLK Day events for the past eight years. Calling it “a day on, not a day off,” U-CF Superintendent John Sanville said, “It’s nice to give back.”

He said he regretted not being able to work at the park, but it was simply too cold. However, he added that there were 15 other sites where people could volunteer, working in morning or afternoon shifts.

Students from Salesianum and one from Avon Grove Intermediate School volunteer at Project C.U.R.E. in West Grove taking in recycled and refurbished medical supplies, and preparing them to be sent to other countries. The student in the box is Jimmy Conley Jr., a sixth-grader at Avon Grove, and son of Unionville High School Principal Jimmy Conley Sr. who provided the photograph.

“Kennett School District, Avon Grove and Unionville-Chadds Ford are involved in a real collaborative way,” Sanville added. The food drives, we’ve all worked together. Representatives from the three districts have been going to the MLK planning meetings. There are other districts doing things, but the three of us have been doing things together.”

He said hundreds of U-CF students took part.

(Top photo: Hundreds of bagged lunches made at Hillendale Elementary School are prepped for delivery to needy families in Southern Chester County.)

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.