Mayor Cherelle Parker helps launch the 29th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service Annual and presents Harris Wofford Award

Organizers, sponsors, and community partners joined together for a ceremony at Girard College to announce plans for the upcoming 29th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service on the January 15 federal holiday.

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The Greater Philadelphia King Day of Service is the oldest and largest King Day event in the nation and includes, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The National King Day of Service was created in 1994 through federal legislation co-authored by Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, both veterans of the civil rights movement with Dr. King.

Girard College will serve as the region’s signature project site for the fifteenth consecutive year. “Girard College is honored to serve once more as the signature site for Global Citizen’s Greater Philadelphia MLK Day of Service,” said David Hardy, president of Girard College. “This year, Girard celebrates 175 years of being our region’s only independent, private, tuition-free residential college preparatory 1st through 12th grade school. Our mission is to transform the lives of young men and women into the next generation of leaders in our society.”

The overarching theme for the 29th annual King Day of Service is the 60th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Sixty years after Dr. King led a movement to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act, efforts to reverse civil rights are ever present,” said Todd Bernstein, president of Global Citizen and founder and director of the Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service. “The King Day of Service is not just a birthday celebration. It is an opportunity to make Dr. King’s legacy of social justice our mission too, not just on King Day, but every day with, as he would say, a fierce urgency of now.’”

Signature project opportunities at Girard College will include:

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