Schools
Mam'k HS Students Commemorate MLK Day with Service
110 students volunteered throughout the Mamaroneck community.
With the day off from school in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, 110 Mamaroneck High School (MHS) students further honored Dr. King’s legacy by going out into the community to help others.
Students at MHS have participated in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service for years, and yesterday students were spread around working to help various groups.
A group of about 15 students, many from the school’s Environmental Coalition, spent over two hours walking around outside picking up wrappers, pieces of paper and beer bottles.
Senior Sydney Rosen, one of the Coalition’s student leaders, said that the garbage pick-up is an annual event. Rosen said the group also raises money through bake sales and then decides as a group where funds will be donated (last year the World Wildlife Fund received a donation).
About 50 students worked in shifts outside of Stop & Shop collecting boxes of cereal from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Hunger Task Force. The 20-year task force is run by the Mamaroneck Community Action Program (CAP). Sondra Levy, who heads the task force’s food drive, said the pantry serves about 1,500 bimonthly, giving out various kinds of food which include fresh produce and, on occasion, even meat.
Levy said the pantry serves people who live in Larchmont or Mamaroneck who are unemployed, elderly or have low income.
“An event like this is a huge help,” she said. “Whatever we don’t collect in food drives we’d have to buy ourselves to give out.”
The pantry is staffed by volunteers. Pam Anselmo, of the MHS Parent Teacher Association (PTA), said the students collected about 30 bags filled with boxes of cereal, and they packed about 12 boxes into each bag.
Other students made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Larchmont Temple for Hope Soup Kitchen in New Rochelle and Grace Church food pantry in White Plains. Another group at the Temple made cards for residents at the Sarah Neuman Nursing Home, where a separate group went to visit residents. Another group of students went to Golden Shoestring—a Larchmont thrift shop run by the Junior League of Westchester on the Sound—to sort clothes, and the Red Cross Club from the high school walked around to distribute emergency preparedness and fire safety pamphlets. And lastly, some students went to the CAP during the day to help with outreach and an art project.
