Honoring MLK’s Legacy By Rebuilding Community

 

Volunteers refurbish the Blue Triangle Community Center in Houston ahead of 2016 Final Four (Photo Credit: Regal Media Group/Todd A. Smith).

 

Something a King Would Be Proud Of

 

“Everyone can be great…because everyone can serve,” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said.  “You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”


 On Jan. 18, over 300 volunteers joined the NCAA Men’s Final Four Local Organizing Committee and The Mission Continues to honor King’s legacy by refurbishing the Blue Triangle Community Center in Houston.


“That’s why we’re excited that it’s today,” said Barry Mattson of The Mission Continues.  “To celebrate and memorialize the Martin Luther King Day.  A day of service is what we wanted to bring to this.  And what a perfect day for it; I think it would fall in line with what he taught.”


A mosaic of colors, ages and backgrounds united together to beautify the Blue Triangle Community Center, which serves hundreds of people annually with swimming lessons, youth spring and summer camps, as well as adult gardening and quilting programs.


Volunteers, ranging from wounded veterans to members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council and children renovated basketball courts, swimming pools, and libraries, painted and planted shrubbery. 


Participants also renovated playground equipment and built benches for an outdoor classroom.


Mattson hopes that the children of the community who volunteered at the Blue Triangle Community Center on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will take pride in the facility because they worked to make it what it is today.


“That’s what we’re trying to do is get the kids from the community coming out to take ownership and pride in their own community,” Mattson said.  “Because then if they see their friends tag something they’ll go, ‘hey, I just cleaned that.”


Membership at the Blue Triangle Community Center is $5 per year for children, $10 per year for youth, $25 per year for adults.  Life membership is available for $350.

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