"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

Friday was MLK day around here in Vicksburg. We all went to the gym for special presentations in the morning and listened to some awesome guest speakers about MLK and the huge difference he has made in all of our lives. One of our speakers was the son of MLK's secretary and he had lots of old letters and pictures from MLK to his mom that he shared with us, it was pretty neat. Another one of our speakers was the youngest Freedom Rider in Jackson, being only 13 at the time and thrust into the civil rights movement (and into jail with MLK multiple times). He also shared some amazing stories about MLK and times back then. Our last speaker of the day was an 88 year old white man who was a journalist in New Orleans at the time of the Freedom Riders and MLK. He worked for a more liberal newspaper and didn't agree with the KKK/white supremacy, so he had an interesting perspective and even though he was white, his life was threatened many times. All of the stories we heard were really inspiring and all of the speakers told us multiple times that if MLK was here today, he would be really proud of us (AmeriCorps), which made me feel really good about what I am doing and dedicating these 10 months to service. Monday we are working with a children's shelter for the MLK day of service, so I will fill y'all in on that later!
This morning I got up early and volunteered at the "Chill in the Hills Vicksburg 10k walk/run" with about 30 other AmeriCorps members. It was tough getting up early, but totally worth it! I took people's info when they got done the run, congratulated them, and handed the into off to the runners to get it all ready for awards inside. After the original race, there was a 1 mile fun run for kids, and I got to place a medal around each of their necks when they finished :) They were all so adorable! We also got to meet and get our picture taken with Patrick House, the winner of season 10's Biggest Loser, who is from Vicksburg! It was really neat to meet a TV star and local celebrity :)

I think it's funny that we are next to him in our huge AmeriCorps parkas...it looks like I need to be on the Biggest Loser myself! Haha

After all of the races were over, we headed inside for some homemade southern chili and raffle...where I actually won something! A lovely candle :) 

Woohoo! It was exciting for two reasons: 1. I never win anything and 2. they pronounced my last name correctly!