The City of Palo Alto and Youth Community Service honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday with a community celebration filled with activities, performances and music.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day takes place annually on the third Monday of every January and remembers the birthday of the civil rights leader.
People of all ages came together at the Mitchell Park Community Center for a three-hour celebration. Young children scrambled around attentive parents as they put together care packages for children at the Ronald McDonald House and made blankets for the homeless. Parents helped their younger children write letters to elected officials, while the audio recordings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. swept through in the background.
Local organizations like the YMCA set up booths around the main quad providing information about their work and how others can get involved. Educating the public with historical elements and informative visuals, the area was decorated with posters and art work of important civil rights leaders.
As adults and children enjoyed a festive event, people of all backgrounds came together to commemorate the meaning behind Martin Luther King Day.
Melanie Hogue has cultivated a unique perspective on storytelling through her multifaceted educational path, extracurricular activities, and cultural background. In 2018, Melanie received her B.A. in English, with a minor in Economics, and a certificate in Arts of the Moving Image from Duke University. Growing up in South Florida, diversification was always an important aspect of her life. As a first-generation student, she often credits her own cultural upbringing—a mix of traditional American customs, her father's French Canadian methods, and her mother's Peruvian practices—for the diversity she tried to find in her own studies. Throughout her undergraduate career, she dedicated her time to engaging in irreplaceable experiences that spun a wide spectrum of cities, languages, and activities. From Greece, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Peru, and London, Melanie participated in six different global education programs, with each new experience providing for a unique chapter in her life. From challenging herself through hikes up Mount Olympus and treks though the Amazon Rainforest to expanding her creativity through internships with Warner Bros. and Chanel, Melanie is always searching for her next big story.
Ashlyn Rolllins graduated summa cum laude from Corban University with a B.S. in political science. Her passions include advocating for vulnerable populations including the elderly and those living in poverty. After her semester studying communications, marketing, migration and free speech and interning in Washington, D.C., she served as editor-in-chief for her school’s newspaper, The Hilltop. In this role, she gave students a platform to share their “me too” experiences and sought to relate national news and campus news. During her senior year, she wrote her thesis on malnutrition in nursing homes and presented it at a national undergraduate research conference. Ashlyn is excited to use the data and storytelling skills she learns at Stanford to write affective stories about major political issues.
