Dear Readers,

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is next Monday, January18.  MLK Day marks a national day of service and giving back to our local communities.

There are dozens of volunteer projects taking place across northern New England.  To get involved, please visit the sites below:

Maine

There are more than a dozen opportunities across the entire state on the Maine Service Commission site.

Goodwill’s AmeriCorps members are also organizing service projects throughout Maine with which you can get involved:

1. January 18: Snowshoe Trails Mapping Day
(Mount Blue State Park, Weld)

Mount Blue State Park is open all year round, offering great winter recreation trails.  At 9:00 AM we will offer an Introduction to Using  GPS for new users.

We will be hiking the park’s snowshoe trails with GPSs and doing some light trail work in an effort to help the park and map the trails as part of a project we are doing to help promote healthy communities.  We will provide hand-held GPSs for event and some snowshoes.  There will be a brief intro training for new GPS users and hot drinks and light refreshments served to participants.

For more information, please contact Joel Alex at (207)649-0018.

2. January 17 & 18: Game Loft Opportunity (Belfast)
Come join us while participants role play a small town harboring an escaped slave in the 1850’s. The purpose of the scenario is to show the moral and ethical complexities of civil disobedience and to make the story personal to the young people who act in this role play session. The program is open to others as spectators and will be open to the public 1 – 4 PM.

For more information, please visit the Game Loft.

3. Janury 18: Wolfe’s Neck Farm (Freeport)

Wolfe’s Neck Farm volunteers will serve by learning to grow food in indoor containers – a gardening method that is available to almost all people, regardless of class, economic standing, or time of the year. We will serve ourselves and our families by learning how to grow food, and we will serve our larger community by donating half of the vegetables to our local food pantry.

Participants will also examine food in justice by participating in a “World Lunch.” By experiencing firsthand the unequal distribution of food across the world and in our communities, we will be challenged to address hunger and poverty. Contact Liz Brownlee at (207) 865.4363.

4. January 18: ReGift It! (Portland)

Our project hopes to bring together people of all ages and backgrounds to strengthen our community and bridge social barriers.  By collecting unwanted goods and redistributing them in the community, we will be meeting real needs for Maine people who are struggling to purchase normal goods in this tight economy.  AmeriCorps Alums of Portland, Maine believes that sharing goods and services is one of the best ways to make use of our community’s scarce resources and sees that the values of Martin Luther King will be upheld as we work toward social justice in this way.

ReGift It! is entirely volunteer organized and led – since we all have busy schedules, email is our preferred method of communication:  portlandregiftit@gmail.com If you don’t have access to email, feel free to call Caitlyn Horose at 720-298-2490.

New Hampshire -

Check out opportunities at VolunteerNH.org

Vermont -

Visit the VT Commission on National & Community Service at VolunteerVT.org

You can also visit MLKday.gov and Serve.gov for a complete listing of national and regional opportunities.

About the author: Michelle is the Communications Coordinator for Goodwill Industries of Northern New England. She lives in Portland and loves thrift store shopping, food co-ops, New England history and finding people to write posts for this blog. Read more from this author