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As I’m sure you are aware, Monday of this week was MLK Day. This is a busy time for us in the YSA Grants department with funds being distributed and projects launching all over the US.
is year’s MLK Day, I feel extra-connected to the vision and spirit of the day. This being my first year with YSA, I had not yet been able to see the lives that were being touched all over the country by our grant programs. It has never been clearer to me that the significance of their start date of MLK Day was no coincidence. Beginning service projects on MLK Day is a strategic move that motivates and inspires grantees and YSA staff alike.My connection to MLK Day this year is two fold. Not only am I able to see the significant impact that more than twenty grants to my home state of Connecticut, but even within my small hometown, the memory of Dr. King still echoes clearly. Over the last year, students from Simsbury High School in of Simsbury, CT have been researching the formative years that Dr. Martin Luther Kind Jr. spent in our rural Hartford suburb. When King was just a teenager attending Morehouse College, he along with a group of about 100 other students spent two summers working on a tobacco farm to earn money for their education. Students at Simsbury High School created a short documentary, “Summers of Freedom: Martin Luther King Jr. in Connecticut”, film chronicling this little know portion of King’s life that was quickly picked up by CBS News! I can’t tell you how excited I was to see it and how proud I was of their concentrated efforts. This information is a treasure to the residents of Simsbury and to the memory of Dr. King. I encourage you to watch the CBS News story and the short documentary; my description would not nearly do it justice. I congratulate the students of Simsbury High School who worked so hard to uncover this lost part of history. Go Trojans!!
