{"id":11183,"date":"2022-01-26t17:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-26t17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dpetrov.2create.studio\/planet\/wordpress\/volunteers-mark-martin-luther-king-day-with-environmental-service\/"},"modified":"2023-02-28t18:49:52","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28t18:49:52","slug":"volunteers-mark-martin-luther-king-day-with-environmental-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/volunteers-mark-martin-luther-king-day-with-environmental-service\/","title":{"rendered":"volunteers mark martin luther king day with environmental service"},"content":{"rendered":"
by isabel miller<\/strong><\/p>\n washington \u2014 instead of sleeping in on saturday morning, over a hundred volunteers turned to a day of action in honor of rev. martin luther king jr. day.<\/p>\n volunteers donned red gloves and headed into pope branch park to collect trash \u2013\u2013 from plastic bottles to mattresses \u2013\u2013 to honor the late civil rights leader. the event was planned for january 17, but was pushed back due to weather conditions. <\/p>\n this year the total trash collected weighed 11,333 pounds. last year over 4,600 pounds of trash were removed from the area according to anacostia riverkeeper member trey sherard. <\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s a day on, not a day off,\u201d dolly davis, president of the pope branch park restoration alliance, said about the intersection between environmental justice and mlk day. <\/p>\n davis\u2019 grandmother used to say a \u201ccommunity\u2019s cleanliness is next to godliness;\u201d she believes king represented the same message. davis works within her community to educate her neighbors, teaching how to properly recycle, build rain barrels and be more conscious of the environment.<\/p>\n king is remembered for his role in the civil rights movement, and inspires days of service across the country. <\/p>\n \u201cit really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.\u201d king said in a 1976 christmas sermon. \u201cwhatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.\u201d<\/p>\n davis said she believes in king\u2019s message and wants to bring people together to enjoy the earth and instill his dream in her community. <\/p>\n davis was one of several community leaders and members of local nonprofit organizations who worked with the environmental group anacostia riverkeeper in an annual event to clean up trash along the pope branch stream, which flows into the anacostia river.<\/p>\n the anacostia river is one of the rivers in the u.s. that was considered \u201cimpaired by trash\u201d by the environmental protection agency <\/a>over a decade ago.<\/p>\n