More than 80 volunteers braved the frigid temperatures on Saturday, Jan. 18 to board up vacant structures near Harms Elementary School in southwest Detroit with a goal of creating safer routes to school for area students.
The day of service was a joint collaboration between the ACCESS Active Community Teen Service program and Americorps Urban Safety project, and included 15 students from Dearborn Public Schools.
Volunteers worked through the afternoon boarding up houses and windows, cleaning debris in alleyways, and clearing trash and tires from sidewalks.
Rachid Elabed, ACCESS ACTS program coordinator, said the program conducts a service project every year for area youths on Martin Luther King Day.
“The kids felt good about helping out. Instead of sleeping in on their day off from school, they chose to do a good deed and give back to the community,” Elabed said. “Volunteers of different ethnic backgrounds came together as one to honor the spirit and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.”
For more information about ACCESS ACTS, email Rachid Elabed at relabed@accesscommunity.org.
