Volunteers are keeping Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of sacrifice alive at UT.

On Saturday, Jan. 14, 301 UT students spent the afternoon serving in different areas of Knoxville for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service event, hosted annually by the center for leadership and service at UTK. The service was voluntary, and volunteers worked with areas and organizations such as Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Zoo Knoxville and Sequoyah Hills.

Most students worked from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. doing a variety of service activities like pulling weeds and picking up trash.

“We’re here at this elementary school in South Knoxville and we’re actually helping doing some beautification projects along the outside of the school. So, pulling up old tarps and things like that, that are impeding the growth of new plants,” said Alex Crockett, a junior in Food Science, who served at South Knoxville Elementary School.

“We’re just helping make sure we can make the school a happy place for the kids to learn.”

 At Ijam’s Nature Center, students removed Privet, an invasive plant that can produce mildly toxic fruit.

 “We plan to help fight against the Privet so that the actual plants that are native to Tennessee can actually grow,” Garret Johnson, a freshman in Kinesiology who volunteered at Ijams said.

Many UT students are not from the Knoxville area, and although they may have helped their communities back home, they have not had the chance to volunteer in Knoxville yet. For them, the day of service was an opportunity to start.

 “We just wanted to do whatever we could to help our community out,” said Luke Isaac, a freshman in supply chain management who volunteered at Ijams. “Our home community … is Memphis, but we feel like since we are residents of Knoxville we should still give back.”

 Some volunteers took the chance to serve for more personal reasons. Many volunteered for religion, enjoyment, to honor King Jr. or even just to fulfill a New Year’s resolution.

 “I came here for this semester as a New Year’s resolution to help my community more, and I just feel like this is a good place to start and a good time to start,” Wojih Akeel, a freshman in chemical engineering who also spent to the afternoon at Ijams said.

 Without the help of MLK Day of Service volunteers, Jenny Arthur, member of the Old Sevier Community Group, said some of the projects may have never been finished.

 “We are extremely grateful for these student groups who come help us because it would take us a very long time to get these projects going if it weren’t for the help of large groups coming,” Arthur said. “You wouldn’t believe how happy it makes us when we see a busload, a whole busload of people come to help.”

 While Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemorates his work during the Civil Rights Movements, King Jr. was also an active contributor to his local community.

 “We see him (King Jr.) as being such a big part of the civil rights movement and being this very like vocal, prominent figure fighting against injustice here in society, and while we may not be able to all do that, this is taking a part in his legacy and making sure we’re being a part of that social change,” Crockett said.