“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The 2018 MLK Weekend of Service kicked off with an amazing community-worship service at Tuskegee United Methodist Church. The church was filled with love as people arrived to worship God together and commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. King. The power-packed worship service included musical selections from many groups and soloists such as: the Auburn UMC Celebration Singers, Coach Jerome Temple, who is a music teacher at George Washington Carver Elementary, Rose Washington, Anin Hunt, and a praise dance by Praise Nation Dance Team of Cuba, AL.
The Word was brought forth by Rev. Dwayne Watson of Praise Nation Worship Center (Cuba, AL) who preached on the subject of “Keeping God’s Purpose in Our Unity” (Genesis 11), ending his sermon with a portion of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.In addition to an awesome word and phenomenal singing, our worship included a call-and-resposne litany led by the Tuskegee Wesley Foundation, Community Prayers led by Joe Davis, and a beautiful benediction that involved the entire congregation singing “This Little Light of Mine” while holding candles in the air.
We appreciate everyone who helped make the community-wide worship a success – Rev. Elizabeth Whatley of Tuskegee UMC, all our performers, PraiseNation Worship Center, and Grace UMC of Auburn which provided refreshments after the service!
In addition to an incredible community-wide worship service, we also had a day of service that involved home repair, a street cleanup project, food pantry organization, and a children’s event. The morning began with over 120 volunteers gathering at Washington Chapel AME Church in Tuskegee for breakfast and registration.
From there, volunteers went to their sites to begin serving throughout Macon and Lee counties. We’re so thankful for all the teams that served: Auburn First Presbyterian Church, ARM@AU, Trinity Lutheran Church, Tuskegee Chapter of Omega Tau Sigma, Tuskegee Veterinary students, Liberty UMC (Notasulga), Auburn Wesley, Tuskegee Wesley, Auburn Community Church, Auburn UMC College Ministry, Tuskegee Construction Science students, Auburn Chapter of Association of General Contractors, Auburn-Opelika SURJ, and Auburn Chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi.
The volunteers had a great time serving and repairing homes. Kaylee McCutcheon, president of ARM@AU says, “This MLK Day has meant the most for me out of all my past MLK experiences. The opportunity to be in the actual situations that Dr. King spoke about and embrace the neighbors in our community by working side by side truly made it feel like I was acting on the principles he fought for. Serving in this way made it all come alive.” Kaylee, along with other members of ARM@AU continued repairs at Ms. Sanford’s home.Josh Loveland, who served with the Auburn chapter of Associated General Contractors with Ms. Smith of Creek Stand says, “I was overjoyed to spend time with Ms. Smith and work together with Drew and his crew. What a great bunch and guys and girls to work with. They are wonderfully kind folks with compassionate souls, and it was beautiful to see what we could accomplish together in a day.“
In addition to home repairs, there was also an MLK children’s event which included a Bible lesson by Rev. Audrey Rodgers and the Tuskegee Wesley Foundation and a lesson on Dr. King by Ms. McIntosh.
Thank you to all our corporate sponsors:
- Carter and Carter Construction of Auburn
- C&C Construction of Notasulga
- Quail Hollow Gardens of Notasulga
- Alabama Steel Supply of Montgomery
- Sabel Steel of Montgomery
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