Dozens of people gathered Monday morning at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Santa Rosa to volunteer as part of a “day of service” in honor of the park’s namesake and on the national holiday celebrating the civil rights giants’ life and legacy.
Within minutes after 9 a.m., a long line stretched across the basketball court as people of all ages waited to sign in and pick up tools. They fanned out to gather trash, sift playground sand, paint, weed and plant trees.
Volunteers “are coming unselfishly, they’re coming to be part of the community, and it uplifts the entire area,” said Rubin Scott, executive director of the Community Equity Foundation, co-host of the event with the Community Baptist Church and support from Santa Rosa Recreation and Parks. “A lot of people are dealing with trauma, and they’re putting that aside to come out and help.”
Scott has long led clean-up efforts at the South Park neighborhood park even before it became a more formal event to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. by creating a “day on, not off,” he said. “It’s such a powerful day. Why not give back and give power back to our community, especially in areas that have been historically left out in Sonoma County.”
Last year, more than 200 people showed up to the yearly event, a record that one volunteer coordinator said could be eclipsed Monday.
“It seemed like an easy way to do something great,” said Elizabeth Taylor, there for the first time with her husband and two young sons.
King, a Baptist minister and civil rights icon, championed non-violent activism as well as community empowerment as part of a larger fight for racial equality and economic and social justice. The movement he inspired and helped lead secured landmark changes including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.
He received the the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, four years before he was assassinated, in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was planning to lead a march on behalf of striking sanitation workers.
The holiday commemorating King was federally recognized in 1983 after a 15-year push by civil rights activists that was initially met with resistance. In 1994, it became the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service. The late John Lewis, a congressman and towering civil rights figure in his own right, spearheaded the initiative as a tribute to King’s life of giving back.
On Monday morning in South Park, Beth Wettergreen came equipped with a trash picker. She’s lived in the area seven years and works as part of a neighborhood coalition to clean up around the park and along the nearby bike path. Wettergreen was happy to see how many people had turned out.
“Given what’s going on in Minneapolis, it’s nice to be doing something positive,” she said.
Demonstrations have erupted in recent weeks in the Minnesota city and across many cities and communities nationwide, including Sonoma County, after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good, who had stopped with others to observe and protest federal agents operating in that city as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic crackdown on immigration enforcement.
A few miles south of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, Sonoma County Regional Parks was hosting a similar service day at Andy’s Unity Park in Moorland. The park, opened in 2018, is named for Andy Lopez, a 13-year-old fatally shot at the site in 2013 by a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy who mistook the replica airsoft pellet gun he was holding for a weapon. His death sparked massive protests and helped lead to the formation of Sonoma County’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach.
About a dozen people pruned rose bushes around a memorial at the park’s entrance set with candles, flowers and pictures of Lopez. About four dozen other volunteers worked different areas, mulching the dog park, and weeding paths to put down gravel.
Gardening gear and snacks lined picnic tables ringed by laminated pictures of King and his quotes.
“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve,” one said.
“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.”
Yesenia Sandoval-Chavira was prompted to look for the event after a niece asked how they would be volunteering this year. “It’s become an expectation,” she said. When she came across the opportunity at Andy’s Unity Park, “it all connected really beautifully.”
That’s because Sandoval-Chavira, who now lives in Sonoma, used to work as part of AmeriCorps, the federal service agency, at the nearby Bellevue Elementary School Lopez attended. She taught him in an after-school program.
At the time, the park was “an abandoned lot,” she said. “I’m really glad to see it like this. It’s a huge difference.”
An hour into the work, “we’ve been going at it. Everyone’s focused, working together on a common objective side by side… And that’s how it should be,” Sandoval-Chavira said. “Even though I’m doing something small, it makes me feel like I’m doing something big.”
“And you are,” said volunteer Beth Eurotas-Steffy cheerfully as she walked by.
Eurotas-Steffy, who also serves on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission has been coming for three years.
“It’s so important we get out of our homes and come together,” she said. With everything going on, “this year it’s more important than ever.”
You can reach senior reporter Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or marisa.endicott@pressdemocrat.com. On X @marisaendicott and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.