From the staff of the Office of Campus and Community Engagement to the entire TU basketball team, the Transy community turned out largely on Monday morning to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through acts of solidarity and service.
Transy students, faculty and staff had the opportunity to walk in the annual MLK Jr. Commemorative March in downtown Lexington and to decorate collection boxes for basic needs items as part of the OCCE’s “A Month of Love to Drive Out Hate.”
The day began with the freedom march. On an unusually sunny day, hundreds of community members gathered at the Convention Center to march down Main Street in memory and support of King’s legacy.
A number of faculty and staff made appearances in the crowd, as well as students from organizations like Circle K. Additionally, Transylvania’s basketball team, clad in crimson jackets, was easy to spot. The team has participated in the march nearly every year for the last eight or nine years.
“We always come down and then go back to campus to practice a little later in the day,” said Coach Brian Lane. “It’s great to see people down here every year. We see a lot of professors, a lot of people in the community, all coming together for the same cause.”
After the march, students came together to inaugurate “A Month of Love to Drive Out Hate” by decorating boxes that will be distributed around campus to collect donations of basic needs items. The OCCE hosted the event and served free Third Street Stuff coffee and North Lime donuts to volunteers.
Creative-minded students gravitated toward box decorating. Others packed kits with items already purchased by the OCCE, wrote encouraging messages on note cards to include with the kits, or wrapped the boxes with banner paper.
“A Month of Love…” invites the Transy community to donate these items for community organizations such as The Nest. There will be eleven locations on campus at which to donate. You can find the full list of needed items here.
The collection drive will end on Valentine’s Day, and the office will hold another event on Thursday, Feb. 16 to pack the kits for donation “to local organizations that have expressed a need for these kinds of kits,” wrote Michelle Thompson in an email to student organization leaders.
“We do something every year, but we wanted it to be a little bit more focused on being at Transy for students and centered around actually helping [with] what the neighborhood needs,” said senior Teddy Salazar, an intern in the office of community engagement.
