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Arab Americans Give Back Across the Nation on MLK Day
Fueled by President-elect Obama’s call for Americans to serve on King Day and throughout the year, community and non-profit organizations across the nation are preparing for an astounding record turn out of people ready to give back to their communities this year in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Member organizations of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) are planning local service projects of their own across the nation to bring together Arab Americans in their diverse communities to honor Dr. King’s life and teachings through volunteer service on Monday, January 19, 2009.
In metro-Detroit, volunteers from NNAAC, ACCESS, ARC and AmeriCorps will work toward helping feed the homeless. Volunteers will be making sandwiches and collecting can goods from the surrounding neighborhoods. The group will meet at the ACCESS location on 6154 Schafer Dearborn, MI 48126 from 11 a.m. 4 p.m. If you would like to participate, please register online here, and choose Arab American Resource Corps Project. Be sure to dress warm as volunteers will be out in the cold collecting food items. Free brunch is included.
Other projects going on across the Nation range from sponsoring discussions about minority struggles how the principles and ideology of MLK have influenced their work and activism in Chicago by Arab American Action Network, to organizing a free seminar to help newly arrived refugees seeking to enter the job market held by the Alif Institute in Atlanta, to helping out in homeless shelters and operating food drives ran by the Arab American Family Support Center in New York and the Center for Arabic Culture in Boston. There are currently 18 independent Arab American community based organization members in nine states in NNAAC, all of which are participating in their own individual projects upholding the same vision Dr. King had on MLK Day.