MLK Jr.

I’ve been meaning to post something for the past couple days but still kind of processing a little bit about what I wanted to say. I love my job, I’m blessed to work for a small humanitarian organization that distributes new shoes to children and adults in need all over the world. It’s my full time job and I get to travel around all over the US and abroad training our wonderful volunteers about the process in which we distribute shoes. We don’t just hand them out, we wash each person’s feet before a new pair of socks and shoes are placed on them.

Martin Luther King Jr. weekend is a big time for us. We spend months planning for the many distributions that we facilitate across the United States that will take place during the MLK week/weekend. Most of our work is done Internationally but MLK weekend and back to school time are our two biggest domestic projects that we do each year so a lot goes into them. I’m involved in all aspects of the planning process for many of our events in the US and it’s a whole lot of work for a small organization to plan nearly 20 events taking place simultaneously over just a few short days. In the past I’ve been so stressed out with the planning and making sure everything gets shipped to where it needs to go and that we have enough t-shirts for all of our volunteers. I have to make sure that we stay on schedule and that the whole event runs as smooth as possible with no complications. I completely admit that because I’m so worried about those things I have lost focus on why we were there in the first place. I lost focus about why we do what we do on MLK day, about why January 16^th is a holiday and why it should be important to people all over the world. This year was different though! I did two distributions this past week and I was able to sit and just watch a little bit of what was actually going on around me and reflect on what was taking place. Had it not been for Dr. King our organization probably wouldn’t even exist. Had it not been for Dr. King I wouldn’t be able to experience the things I have the opportunity to experience through my job which truly is so much more than just a job. I wouldn’t be able to be a part of a community nearly everywhere I go. It’s not perfect and I don’t know that we’ve gotten to the point that Dr. King hoped we would be. Of course we still have issues sometimes at our distributions, kids don’t like the shoes they’ve received or parents are pushy or get upset with us sometimes if they have to wait in line too long. Beyond all of that though it’s good. At every event I get to meet people from literally all over the world and from all sorts of different backgrounds and it is truly a blessing to me. Everybody has a story, none of us are without one and every one is unique. Dr. King fought for justice, for social change, for peace and I’m so glad that he did.