CAMBRIDGE — Each year, on the third Monday in January, Martin Luther King Day, volunteers across the nation perform service projects in honor of the life of the civil rights leader.
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, “The MLK Day of Service is intended to empower individuals, strengthen communities, bridge barriers, create solutions to social problems and move us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a ‘Beloved Community.’”
The “Beloved Community” was for Dr. King not merely a philosophic doctrine, but rather a realistic, achievable goal. He believed a more just society could be “attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence,” the website www.thekingcenter.org says.
Members of Individual Dorchester, a local activist group, took the mission to heart and spent the holiday installing bookcases with books in four local laundries. The bookcases were donated by Martha Haberman, Jim Sicks, Chris Holtz and Sandy Kramer.
The books were donated by members of Indivisible Dorchester and Roxane Mostrom. Folks waiting for their laundry will find books of fiction and non-fiction as well as children’s’ books and books written in Spanish. The group encourages folks to take the books, borrow or donate books.
“We are so grateful to the owners and managers of the laundries for allowing space for the bookcases” said Mary Handley, a member of Indivisible Dorchester. “We believe access to books can help individuals and communities fulfill Dr. King’s dream. Perhaps while waiting, an adult or child will find a terrific book to pass the time, enjoy a good story, learn something new or realize a great idea.”
The bookcases were placed at laundries on Cosby Avenue, Elm Street, Choptank Avenue and the Skip Jack Dry Cleaners on Sunburst Highway. Indivisible Dorchester hopes to install more bookcases in other laundries in the county.
“Indivisible Dorchester is affiliated with Indivisible.org, a nationwide progressive grassroots organization,” the group’s website says. “Our purpose is to recruit and elect local and national candidates who share our vision of legal and socio-economic equality.”