King Day leads to service commitment for New Jersey family

By J. Louise Larson
King Service Day is spurring a transition to monthly service for one New Jersey family.
Taking a tip from http://www.usaservice.org/ in a connection made through AT&T’s Share Our Strength program, Anne Bertelsen and her husband John Williams entered their zip code and found a local project to help with on Monday, Martin Luther King Day: the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.
“There were listings that didn’t feel like they were just right for our family – we wanted to do something about looking out for our fellow community members,” Bertelsen said.
The family went to the grocery store and filled up their cart with food bank basics – dry goods, canned goods – nothing perishable. Mac and cheese, Parmalat milk, cereals, rice, beans, canned veggies to bring to a local home in the Newark area that serves as a drop-off point for the food bank.
“Given the ages of my kids (13 and 15), I wanted something they could relate to,” she said.
“Food banks in general have been particularly hard hit,” Bertelsen said. “This is something I feel particularly passionate about. People should not go hungry in this country.”
Being part of the solution isn’t a new idea for Bertelsen, a marketing consultant to Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations, and Williams, a technical engineer for the recording industry,
With their son, then 14, they traveled to Diverville, in the Biloxi area to help with recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. After their work in Mississippi, their daughter worked at the local food bank, loading and unloading and scrubbing down pallets.
But before they had kids, Bertelsen and Williams were regularly involved in hands-on charitable work.
“But that was BEFORE we had kids – somewhere along the way, with three kids and working full-time, it got easier to write a check. But when you do that, you miss out on what you’re trying to teach your kids about giving back,” she said.
She said she was disappointed there weren’t more hands-on projects to choose from; she was hoping for something particularly service-oriented – “something to acknowledge Martin Luther King’s life,” she said.
“You’ve got to make it easy for people to show up,” Bertelsen said.
So is there a certain amount of guilt involved in the decision to consciously look for ways to give back?
Sure, she said.
“Mostly I feel bad that our lives are so crazy – like life has been a big blur and somehow I missed that larger message of doing something for Martin Luther King Day that President Obama was talking about … that’s what’s terrific about going on line. You just put in your ZIP code and you’re able to do something today ,” Bertelsen said.
It’s time to make service a monthly commitment, Bertelsen said.
“I’ve left a message with the community bank. I hope our family can set aside a Saturday each month. We have to somehow make a point to incorporate service into our life – we just have to make it a point to make it part of who we are on an ongoing basis,” she said, citing her belief system.
“For me, it’s about Christianity at its basic core – the lesson of my brother’s keeper. Whether it’s the Golden Rule, or whatever, we are all connected, and if some of us are suffering it’s going to come back to all of us. If you’re going to be here on earth, taking up valuable resources, you owe something back. We’ve certainly been fortunate enough – if we can write a check, and I’m not discounting that, there has to be an action there to really understand it, so the next generation goes on and continues to care,” she said.
King Day of Service was initiated by Congress in 1994 to build on the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thursday, Jan. 15 should have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 80th birthday. Cut down in his prime by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968, the slain civil rights leader left a legacy that has seen unprecedented progress toward the same dream of equal rights for all that earned the leader of the famed Montgomery Boycott a Nobel Prize.
This year, President-elect Barack Obama encouraged Americans to take the day to get involved in their community.
“The aim is to make the holiday a day ON, where people of all ages and backgrounds come together to improve lives, bridge social barriers, and move our nation closer to the ‘Beloved Community’ that Dr. King envisioned,” a spokesman said.