President-Elect Obama’s inaugural team invites organizations to post their MLK Day events to the inauguration website.
This coming year, MLK Day falls on January 19th, the day before the 2009 Inauguration. Known as a “day on not a day off” and a popular day for organizing direct-service events, President-Elect Barack Obama is encouraging people to serve in their communities MLK Day and beyond.
Organizers of projects are invited to post their projects on the event registration page on the inauguration site. If you are an organizer and you’ve already posted your event on MLKDay.gov, you are asked to wait to cross post; the aim is for MLKDay.gov events to be migrated to the Inauguration site.
Community members will be able to search for local projects after the New Year. Here is analysis from the Huffington Post; below is the text of the invitation:
Every time our nation faces crisis, our national experience has shown Americans rise to the challenge. While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens. We are one nation….
As a tribute to that legacy and the very real needs of our nation, the President-elect and Vice President-elect will launch a national organizing effort on the eve of their Inauguration to engage Americans in service. This national day of service will fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, 2009 and, unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama will ask Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods. He will ask all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. …
The call will go to all Americans to organize service projects and join others at events in their communities. As the Co-chairs of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, we invite you and your organization to join other Americans to organize service projects in your communities. The Presidential Inaugural Committee will offer Americans a new website to help promote your events and for Americans to make their commitments, build communities, find opportunities to serve and share their results. These can be events that orient people to your organization’s work, engage people in direct service, or bring people together to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy and how they can commit to becoming more engaged citizens.
The official place to post and search for projects is on the MLKDay.gov site. Read more about resources for running a great project.